Hands Up!.... It's The Grammar Police

My current grammar hate is when people try to sound clever / educated and use 'whom' where 'who' is the correct word.

An example:
Look at Ben, whom is standing over there.

Another:
John and Rob, whom are taking photos.

Also, 'photo's' when used as plural.
 
The nonsensical use of "myself" and "yourself" instead of "me" and "you" when people are trying too hard to sound professional.

It doesn't make you sound professional. Quite the opposite, it makes you sound illiterate.
 
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Using an apostrophe in "its", as in "the dog was chewing it's bone".
 
A few of my most hated have already been mentioned,

'Brought' instead of 'Bought' and I agree with the OP when he says he is astounded at the amount of times he reads this in posts.

'Tescos' and 'Asdas' with the now obligatory extra S. :eek:

However I am surprised that my number one hate has not made an appearance.

'Seen' and 'Done' used in the wrong tense in place of 'Saw' and 'Did'.

E.g. "I seen your friend in the supermarket yesterday"

Aaaaargh ! :mad:
 
Gazamonk said:
A few of my most hated have already been mentioned,

'Brought' instead of 'Bought' and I agree with the OP when he says he is astounded at the amount of times he reads this in posts.

'Tescos' and 'Asdas' with the now obligatory extra S. :eek:

However I am surprised that my number one hate has not made an appearance.

'Seen' and 'Done' used in the wrong tense in place of 'Saw' and 'Did'.

E.g. "I seen your friend in the supermarket yesterday"

Aaaaargh ! :mad:
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I missed a golden opportunity in my post above, I should have said

E.g. "I seen your friend in the Asdas yesterday". Lol

That is not an error by the way, around these parts people do refer to "The Asdas". I have no idea why. o_O
 
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Gazamonk said:
I missed a golden opportunity in my post above, I should have said

E.g. "I seen your friend in the Asdas yesterday". Lol

That is not an error by the way, around these parts people do refer to "The Asdas". I have no idea why. o_O
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You missed the now obligatory ending to a sentence....

"I seen your friend in the Asdas yesterday innit" :)
 
antihero post: 6124140 said:
lens!
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Yes that one really bugs me for some reason!
See it all the time on forums
 
Misspelling of lose as loose. That's all over the net and this forum.

And the aforementioned 'of' instead of 'have'. Because people speak like "I should've", "I would've" etc the 've' has become 'of' in written form.
 
I'm another should of, could of, would of hater. I find this especially irritating when spoken.

I also dislike your instead of you're, there not their...

All this said, I am no English scholar and no doubt make lots of grammatical errors. I am especially poor at punctuation, but you've probably noticed that already. :)
 
Some have already been mentioned ("of" instead of "have", "bought/brought", "it's" instead of "its") - but perhaps the most common one these days is the rogue apostrophe, particularly in plurals - it seems almost compulsory to use an apostrophe when writing a plural word.
I've just read something containing the words "business's" and "potato's" instead of "businesses" and "potatoes".
Oh, and I had to smile(?) at the earlier post which contained the word "i" several times, instead of "I"!
 
Midland Red said:
Oh, and I had to smile(?) at the earlier post which contained the word "i" several times, instead of "I"!
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.....and everyone who has posted on this thread has now gone back to read through there posts to see if it was them. :)

Don't say you haven't because I wont believe you. Lol
 
Gazamonk said:
.....and everyone who has posted on this thread has now gone back to read through there posts to see if it was them. :)

Don't say you haven't because I wont believe you. Lol
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*snigger* :)
 
Most of this doesn't really bother me, providing I can understand the post, but I'm not prepared to read something written as a single paragraph without any capitals or punctuation.

Having said that, I don't accept poorly written work from sub-contractors and service providers. I send it back, because it's part of my job to check the content, and edit, but not to rewrite it for the client.
 
ghoti said:
The nonsensical use of "myself" and "yourself" instead of "me" and "you" when people are trying too hard to sound professional.

It doesn't make you sound professional. Quite the opposite, it makes you sound illiterate.
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Learning a foreign language helps with that because it usually means the grammar is properly explained. So, 'myself' is a reflexive pronoun, so only goes with reflexive verbs. To call can be used reflexively: I call myself Mark. It can also used non-reflexively I will call you tomorrow. Not I will call yourself tomorrow.

When I started learning Italian a few years ago, I didn't know what a reflexive verb was, although I did use the reflexive pronouns properly in English without realising how or why I was doing it.

(A reflexive verb describes actions one does to oneself, so I wash myself .)
 
Yeah. I didn't learn grammar when I was at prep school. We learnt English by doing a lot of reading and writing, so that it - sort of - became natural to write correctly. This didn't help when I reached high school, and it drove my teacher nuts when she realised that I could write better than most of the class, but I only had a vague idea what a noun and a verb were, and hadn't a clue about any of the more "esoteric" grammar. Fortunately I had a different teacher from second year, and he didn't think this was terribly important, but I still don't understand most of this.
 
Similar to Martyn here. Know a verb and a noun but not so sure about adjective/adverbs/pronouns. And as for partciples, gerunds and prepositions etc, not a clue.

Makes me think of this line from a certain comedy series though: "My aunt, who I live with, had a parrot called..."
 
For Sale: Oak Dining table. One careful lady owner. With carved wooden legs. :D

Dave
 
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I really hate it when people dont use the spell checker and also dont re-read what they have typed for obvious errors. My big pet hate at the moment has to be 'Defiantly', instead of 'Definately' :mad:
 
;)
Nikon_Nick said:
I really hate it when people dont use the spell checker and also dont re-read what they have typed for obvious errors. My big pet hate at the moment has to be 'Defiantly', instead of 'Definately' :mad:
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Or perhaps definitely? ;)
 
MartynK said:
Yip. For sale: A kettle by a lady with a copper bottom.
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indeed , "for sale , ford fiesta, one careful lady owner , in great condition for age but requires regular servicing"

That aside, my major pet hate is people who write about themselves in the third person
 
"I arks you this question..." How can you change the word ask to arks and think it still makes sense!

Using 'us' instead of 'our', as in "I'm just walking back to us car".

Thinking that the plural of 'you' is 'yous': "yous guys are so pedantic about your grammar"

What someone mentioned earlier about dialects is very interesting for me as a Southerner living in the North. The spoken grammar of Yorkshire folk is really poor, so I've no idea how they can teach kids in school how to write 'correct English' when they speak something completely different. I guess I'll find out when my oldest child goes to school next year!
 
About twenty years ago I went for a job as a cashier/accounts clerk, and the person who interviewed me kept referring to the position as a "cashierer", and also said "innit" regularly. As this person was going to be my supervisor, I decided to turn down the job when it was offered to me.
I also cringe when I hear the word "gutted" being used to describe any less than satisfactory outcome or situation.
 
Some years back we visited a chocolatier in Wales and the girl who gave the guided tour kept us all cracked up with her use of the extra pluralisation - "ingredientses". I'm pretty sure that this machine autocowrecks me if I (yup, it does!) type I in lower case, although with some dicking about, I can post i'm. (But it does flag that as an error.)

Most of the time, I ignore typos (hell, I make enough of them!) and missing punctuation except when it makes a difference in the meaning of a sentence. My favourite pet hate is a missing comma in "What's up, Name here?" which is changed so much when the comma's missed out and becomes an enquiry into a possible insertion rather than one into the state of someone's mind.
 
TopBanana said:
"I arks you this question..." How can you change the word ask to arks and think it still makes sense!

Using 'us' instead of 'our', as in "I'm just walking back to us car".

Thinking that the plural of 'you' is 'yous': "yous guys are so pedantic about your grammar"

What someone mentioned earlier about dialects is very interesting for me as a Southerner living in the North. The spoken grammar of Yorkshire folk is really poor, so I've no idea how they can teach kids in school how to write 'correct English' when they speak something completely different. I guess I'll find out when my oldest child goes to school next year!
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As a northerner (well, midlands), living in the south, I'm sorry to confirm it's not much better. :eek:
 
viv1969 said:
As a northerner (well, midlands), living in the south, I'm sorry to confirm it's not much better. :eek:
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Very true, I know of many oddities in rural areas of Dorset and Somerset. And London is a whole world of its own when it comes to dialects.
I reckon that the home counties are probably the closest to using grammatically correct English when speaking.
 
TopBanana said:
Very true, I know of many oddities in rural areas of Dorset and Somerset. And London is a whole world of its own when it comes to dialects.
I reckon that the home counties are probably the closest to using grammatically correct English when speaking.
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I'd have to exclude large swathes of Kent from that.
 
Nikon_Nick said:
I done it. She done it. He done it. We done it etc etc
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I refer you to my earlier post Nick, this is without doubt my number one cringer.

I have actually heard professional broadcasters on the television use this aberration. :exit:
 
Quote: (topbanna) "And London is a whole world of its own when it comes to dialects."

That's because there aren't many indigenous Londoners left living there now.

When I was born and spent my younger days there, the dialect was the same in North, East, South and West London, now its rare to hear a true London dialect anymore, as most of it is spoken with a foreign accent.

The East End of London was well known for it's cockney rhyming slang, and I guess pockets of it might still exist.

I moved to Suffolk some 30 years ago, and the local dialect was quite prolific here then, but even that has been watered down as people from other parts of the UK migrated here to work.

However, you can still here the local dialect spoken, as the indigenous population retain it.

Here you can hear computer pronounced as 'compooter', a fuse is a 'fooze', a boat is a 'boot', I saw it is said as "I sinnit", and he showed me is "he shoo me".

Personally, I like to hear local dialects when I travel around the UK, although there are one or two that grate on my London ears. ;)

Local dialects are part of local history, and shouldn't be lost.

Dave
 
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People who use words like sick, sorted, sound, recognise, in an impropper way - this just about acceptable if you are a teenage gansta wannabe from the streets innit - it is distinctly less aceptable in a mid 30s photographer and is in no way acceptable in a job intervew ( A while back we had a candidate who thought our opportunity sounded "well sick like an massive an that ")
 
Just text speak. It's horrible. Anyone who uses it is an ignorant moron!

I don't mind Americanisms, language is evolving so that's fine.

Text speak on the other hand. Disgusting.
 
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