Gaaaaah

[filkertom]

Certainly, this is the oldest and possibly most obvious complaint about the Net, but this stuff is really starting to bug me.

Can't people use phrases they actually understand? Can't they punctuate properly, and come close to using correct grammar? Can't people frickin' spell!?

"Pedal to the mettle". "Per say". "She couldn't bare it". "Taking it's time". "He was about to loose the game". And on, and on, and on.

No one is perfect. I realize that. But KEE-RYSTE we've got frickin' spell-checkers. In theory, we learned all this stuff back in grade school. And I keep seeing the same stuff over, and over, and over. This isn't something like "KEE-RYSTE" or "frickin'", fake words used to emphasize one thing or another. This is the actual language, actually being mangled by people who should know better.

What are your least favorite linguistic atrocities?

Comments

[marahsk.livejournal.com]

Not to nitpick (well, OK, yes, I am nitpicking), but all of your examples would get through spell-check.

My least favorite are posts with no punctuation, capitalization, or line breaks, and grammar and spelling that appears to be random. The worst part is that when you politely suggest to the lemur that somehow managed to learn to type person that you couldn't read their post because it gives you a headache, they respond that none of that matters because this is teh internets, not school, and that's how real people talk now, and you're just an old fogy. Or at least you *think* that's what they replied, as their reply was no more legible than their original post.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely correct about the spell-check, which is why I mention the other points. There are so many good online phrase books, rhyming dictionaries, grammar lessons... hell, copies of Strunk & White are only $1.50, used, at Amazon... or you can find it online (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strunk_and_White).

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

Oh, boy. Got an hour or six?

The most bizarre I've heard of--certainly in terms of the mental image it brings forth--was mentioned in a 'zine review many moons ago: "His arms encircled her waste." Yech!

My favorite occurred in a Dr Who novel, although it a typo rather than a misused word: "The dust was an inch thick on the shelf the Doctor was peeing over."

But the one that inevitably gets my teeth grinding is the vanished infinitive of 'to be': "The car needs washed." as opposed to "The car needs to be washed." or "The car needs (a) washing."

And yeah, sometimes I want to reach through the monitor and throttle the little illiterate on the other side of the connection for using "its'", for being incapable of using the correct form between "you're" and "your" or among "there", "they're" and "their", or--and here's the completely unforgivable one as far as I'm concerned--for the dreaded "L33TSP34K".

Actually, I don't like most online conventions. 'pwned' is not a word. 'zomg' isn't a proper acronym. I used them sometimes, for the same reason I used Microsoft--sometimes you just have to, like it or not.

As for my own literary sins, I know what they are. I overuse ellipses, independent clauses, parentheticals, passive voice, inverted order, and tend toward freakishly long sentences. I mix formal and informal voices, sometimes within the same paragraph. In my defense, each sentence is individually grammatically correct.

I can tell you what the difference is--my parents read to me as soon as I was able to sit up. I learned to read on my own by the time I was two and a half. Not everyone can do that last, but everyone should have their parents make time like that. The difference is incalculable.

Nowadays as soon as the kid can sit up, they get plopped down in front of Barney and Teletubbies. It's not the same--although I will admit that of the modern crop, "Between The Lions" is genuinely in the same league as Sesame Street and Electric Company.

Of course, the really annoying thing about a grammar rant itself is that I feel obliged to quintuple-check before I hit send because nothing (outside of politics) drives me bat$#!+ insane like a grammar/spelling rant that's misspelled or grammatically incorrect. And brother, could I tell you some horror stories from our 'zine days... even ones that were my fault! :)

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

Another good one from another Doctor Who novel referred to Benny when she "grabbed a visitor's ass". When I had Kate Orman autograph the book, she went to the page (as she does whenever she sees it) and put a "p" in front of the "ass".

I dunno - I think it's perfectly in character for Benny to grab a visitor's ass, myself...

[lukeski.livejournal.com]

Lately, every time I type the word 'perform', it comes out 'perfrom'.

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

I do that with 'think' and 'thing' every time--when I mean to type 'think', I type 'thing' and vice versa.

You don't want to know how many times I edited this to makes sure I got it all out correctly. :)

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

Let's see, for me it's the word warsh. It's spelled w-a-s-h. There is no r in it. Mixing up they're, there, and their. Messing up your and you're. These are some of the few that I can think of right now.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, "warsh" is a word. It means "to scrub with excessive vigor, possibly while plastered on moonshine".

Similarly, "rasslin" is like "wrestling", but without rules.

[starsongky.livejournal.com]

I'm usually annoyed by contractions and posessives that get switched. Your/You're and Its/It's. Their/There/They're substitutions get on my nerves as well.

I know my own grammar isn't perfect, but basic proficiency would be a welcome change.

[seanmonster.livejournal.com]

Idear.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Oh, so very many errors of that sort that annoy me, but nothing more than when you point it out to a repeat offender, only to have them say:

"Oh, it doesn't matter."

I used to know a young woman with absolutely horrific spelling, grammar, punctuation, and usage (she consistently used "swoon" when she meant "sigh", among other things) errors in every IM, email, and journal post she wrote. Being corrected made her irritable, because it "wasn't important".

She's studying to be a teacher.

[que-sara-sara.livejournal.com]

there, their and they're. When the former secretary for Conclave couldn't get them right in the minutes I almost screamed. How can you call your self a secretary and still confuse "there will be" and "they are"??!!???

Must catch up at work now. It's going to be a long day. T-minus 4 hours to Frank Hayes pick up time.

[jhayman.livejournal.com]

But darling, the educational system came up with "whole language" where children teach themselves to spell and close counts. What's up with your ire??

Seriously, this is one of my pet peeves as well. Grammar and spelling bloody enhance communication: they make it easier for the reader to understand the message of the sender. I agree that homonynm are hard and irregular verbs challenging. Tough! It's English, one of the most dynamic languages in the world. Just do it!

Least favourite atrocities: too numerous to mention.

[jhayman.livejournal.com]

Homonyms. Not homonym. (exasperated!)

[scott644.livejournal.com]

My least favorite such atrocity is the behavior of the "grammer police" and the "netiquette nazis." They literally drove 'leet to become what it was - all through sheer arrogance and offensive attacks rather than acceptance and gentle guidance.

[scott644.livejournal.com]

Realised that sounded like a slam of this topic - it isn't. It's a slam against those who approach these things aggressively and insultingly, where I see folks here actually taking a well-reasoned approach.

[adamselzer.livejournal.com]

Could of
Should of
Would of
etc.

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

Ditto. Also misplaced apostrophes - I've generally got a Sharpie on my person at work, and I've been known to whip it out and edit notes people have posted around the building.

[cheshyre]

Okay, that post hurts to read. I have to skim over it, I find it so painful.

A few of my gripes include somebody "pouring over a book" (instead of poring) and psyche spelled sike. And I'm sure I'll think of about fifteen others the moment I submit this, but I'd rather not dwell upon them.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

In speaking, I hate exetera, which I've also seen abbreviated ect. Not overly fond of acrost. All's I know is annoying as well.

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Apostrophes are the things that REALLY get me.

There was a flower shop in Palmer, MA that had a sign outside proudly advertising "Flower's." I wanted to go in and grab the owner by the throat and say "YOU ARE A FLORIST! YOU HAVE MADE A CAREER OUT OF DEALING WITH FLOWERS! YOU SPEND AT LEAST 8 HOURS EVERY SINGLE DAY SELLING, ARRANGING, AND ORGANIZING FLOWERS! FLOWERS ARE YOUR LIVELIHOOD! FLOWERS ARE THE REASON YOU HAVE FOOD AND SHELTER! LEARN TO SPELL THE FRIGGIN' WORD!!!"

And to a lesser extent, I'm always bothered when people draw cartoons and use thought bubbles to indicate speech.

-=ShoEboX=-

A Slightly Hidden Pun

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I hope to Crist that shop didn't belong to Mr. or Ms. Flower....

[valkyrwench.livejournal.com]

You pretty much hit the highlights of my biggest peeves. In the larger sense, my peeve is that the educational system in this country is broken, perhaps irretrievably, and the younger generations aren't being taught properly. I'm sure that in a cemetary somewhere in New England, there is a very loud whirring sound. That would be several of my english teachers over the years of my education whirling continuously. :)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, that is a larger conversation, and necessarily includes one of today's worst proponents of mangled English, George W. Bush.

By a larger conversation, I don't mean debates about, for instance, No Child Left Behind and other federal programs, good or bad; I mean the strange attitude that many people in general, and The Only President We've Got in particular, regarding education and educated people. That strange dichotomy we have, of a man capable of ordering the use of tactical nuclear weaponry who cannot, in fact, say the words "tactical nuclear weaponry" (he says "tacular nucular"). That weird, ugly situation, repeated on several occasions, of the Preznit going to speak somewhere, and being onstage with a Ph.D., and then insulting that person ("You've got a Ph.D., but, heh heh heh, look who's president"). And, most ominously, the allowance of faith to overrule science in public policy. I don't think I have to go into examples of that, and if we want to talk about it, I can open another thread. In fact, I think an open thread would be just about right.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

I think what we're seeing is a long-standing problem that had been invisible prior to the upsurge of interest in and use of the Internet, specifically the Web. These are people who have never been able to spell and who have less than no interest in speaking or writing using proper English grammar and punctuation. We never noticed before because for the most part, aside from books and magazines, communication in English was primarily verbal. You don't hear spelling errors. With the advent of the common "man on the street" stepping into the realm of cyberspace where communication is still primarily textual, we see the errors that were always there, simply invisible due to the prior medium of transfer. More, spoken word passes and can be examined only in hindsight. The written word on our computer screen sits, glaring in 10 point font, for re- and overexamination.

Couple that with the intellectual laziness of the average human being and you get "r u kidding? Srsly?!? lol!"

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

The one that's getting to me most right now is "physical year" for "fiscal year". I haven't seen it in writing, but at least half the people in my business office pronounce it that way.

[devospice.livejournal.com]

You mean we don't get French Benefits?

;)

[mg4h.livejournal.com]

;)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

texting carried over

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

I completely understand that a lot of shorthand is used when texting on a cell phone because it's such a pain in the ass to enter text using a regular phone keypad, but when that usage is carried over into e-mail...AARRRGGGGHHHH! Come on people, you can take the extra 5 or 10 seconds to completely type out your e-mail and prevent me from reading the message 3 or 4 times to decipher what you mean!

[kimpire.livejournal.com]

None of the examples you gave would be caught by a spellchecker. But my personal pet peeve is "should of".

[jonnorthwood.livejournal.com]

I loathe individuals who refuse to use either punctuation or capitalization.

I'll cut individuals some slack if English isn't their first language, but some people are simply sloppy in their writing.

[nuveena.livejournal.com]

Slack-cutting for people for whom English isn't their first language has a definite statute of limitations, though. Half my family speaks and writes English as a second language, and their grammar and spelling are much better than the average online American.

[nuveena.livejournal.com]

"r u kidding? Srsly?!? lol!"

As God is my witness, my kids will get in serious trouble if they start using shortcuts like that in their e-mail. I *hate* that. By God, I want Standard Written English! It's not that hard. And you learn to type faster.

People will say that it doesn't matter; that the important thing is that the kids are typing at all. But it does! How much work correspondence is done via e-mail today? Using the AOL'er shortcuts makes you "sound" like a twelve-year-old.

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

My grad student friend occasionally provides us snippets of the papers she grades. These freshmen use the occasional emoticon or leet-speak in their actual papers. *sigh*

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I still remember the first time I met someone who seriously defended his right to use "mute point".

Loose the rouge...

[lizard-sf.livejournal.com]

"Looking for rouge for dungeon"

Why? Do you want to look pretty?

"U r looser"

Looser than what, exactly?

What really annoys me is when people can't spell words which are displayed in the game text hundreds of times....like people who want to kill 'knolls'. The last time someone asked me where the 'knolls' where, I replied 'Look for Kennedy's motorcade'. Being a product of the American public schools, they didn't get it.

Re: Loose the rouge...

[youngcurmudgeon.livejournal.com]

... Am I a weird American public schoolchild for getting the knolls but not the rouge? :-)

[youngcurmudgeon.livejournal.com]

Daughter of a copy editor here, so my list is longer than just about anyone's. But my two pet peeves are "alot" and "alright." Yes, yes, the latter appears in songs and has become accepted but it still gets under my skin whenever I see it. And "alot" just makes my soul hurt.

I've never actually met someone who uses netspeak/leet seriously, so it's not a big problem for me. Punctuation, though, is necessary, especially if you don't think it's necessary to capitalize. Yes, I do use semicolons when I IM people and so do my friends.

Also, "loose" instead of "lose" (it's rarely the other way around).

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Grammar is the difference between lying down and getting laid.