Yes, there's a fine line between being over pedantic, and preserving the many fine subtle nuances in the language.

Here in Oz, many people cannot distinguish between "will" and "shall".

I often hear people saying things like "Will I come over to your place tomorrow?", when they really mean "Shall I ...."

Asking "Will I ..." is like asking me to predict what will actually happen tomorrow, whereas "Shall I ..." is giving me a choice. Two quite different meanings.


EDIT: Just read a new post which reminded me about another pet peeve:
People often write " I could care less" when they should say "I couldn't care less."

If you COULD care less, then you must already care quite a bit.

If you COULDN'T care less, then you don't care at all, which is generally what people are trying to say.

At home people say "look here" to mean bring yourself over and have a conversation. The appropriate response is "I commin' now"

When my wife first starting working here she actually had some communication issues because she literally just looked over and thought there was something to see.

kairosmatt

Peter,
I just responded to a "could care less" which was actually offered as "could careless" with an offer to find out what exactly would get that person to care less so he can actually get to a place where won't, can't, or couldn't are less and then we'll be done with it. . . (wink)
* * *
My peeve is it's and its ... unlike other possessive English variations, its is the possessive version. Some put the 's in there because they use it for other words ... well the it's version is the contraction of the words it and is ... this rascal is completely counter-intuitive to everything else we learned in grammar school ... (pun intended)
Which makes me wonder why, if it is so counter-intuitive and so contrary to everything else we learn, don't people remember it and use it properly in the first place. . .
* * *
My favorite misuse of grammar structure has always been:
"Throw Harold down the stairs his hat...!"
and might be for some time to come... lol

Until that time . . . Earl J.

Yes, I realize there is a misuse of this its/it's in this thread, but didn't want to use it as an example in order to avoid embarrassing anyone - I'm not a grammar police officer, but have been known to make a grammar citizen's arrest from time to time ... lol

Was this diatribe necessary? Prolly not. ;)

Eye uhgree.
Better then jes' be'in kuwhyett.
Two meny peeps ferget werds r 4 cummuneikayshun.
Whee r all 2 uptite sumtimes.
L8r
;-)

Lawrence's example cracks me up.

I have oodles of peeves in this vein.

"Try and" rather than "try to"

"Him and I" rather than "He and I."

"Were" rather than "we're"

"There" rather than "they're"

(the apostrophe is apparently a real bear to work with)

And my nearly homicidal rage niggle: "Borrow me your pen for a second." My only response to these and more: "CUE THE BANJO MUSIC!"

There's a commercial running on cable for some tax lawyers where the pitchwoman claims that the IRS could attack your paycheck. I thought it was just her mispronouncing it and it slipping by the editor, but the title clearly states "ATTACK" your paycheck. That's a firm you'd do best to avoid.

Who and Whom

This thread probably isn't as frivolous as it seems, as video editors we are the last line of defense when it comes to misspellings and improper use of grammar on the CG of our client's productions. After all, we wouldn't let anything get out of our suites with a green tint to the flesh tones or a mic dangling in the shot...

Well, Spot,
sometimes it's not a matter of looking for it ... a person learns it one way that contradictions the normal understanding by others and those changes jump out at some people that others may not even notice...
Much like parachuting ... if a person learned to don a parachute to jump from an aircraft then someone who insists on leaving the airplane and then putting on his parachute during the fall would certainly raise eyebrows and get many to attempt s/he change that procedure, no?
Of course, grammatical errors aren't as serious as leaving an aircraft to put on a parachute, but they are just as distracting and bothersome to some ... (grin)
* * *
By the way Jay,
the then and than is easily (to me) determined by the letter in the word:
the a in than stands for analysis - this item is better than that one;
while the e in then stands for events - first this event occurred then that event occurred...

Until that time ... Earl J.

A sign out front of a local business:

"For Sale are Rent"

It's been up for two months ;-)

Years ago I did a commercial for a local printing company. One of their products listed in a graphic was "Stationary." Which, after it ran for a couple of weeks, was pointed out that it should be spelled "Stationery."

Oops!

I'll bet that the stationery was in fact stationary, except while in the process of being shipped.

Kelly, do you think there's a high prollality that people won't know that the words prolly, prollalal, and prollality are related to each other?

rob

But ... but ... but ... it's so obvious they're related! They all share the same root word, "probate". ;) By the way, shouldn't that be "prollility"?

Even worse than "He and I" is this "I and He". At the beginning of the sentence "I and her" is very common here.

My first wife's family had a huge number of cases where they got things backwards. I attribute it to an overall trend of trying to teach both the positive aspect and the negative aspect of something together at the same time. Generally teaching only the positive aspect is necessary. For example, "it's always ok to mix different weights of oil as long as you use the same brand, right?" She was obviously taught both "it's ok to mix brands" and "don't mix different weights" together at the same time and got them confused.

Once a waitress approached our table with two large glasses, glancing back and forth, muttering something under her breath. She got to the table and paused, completely unsure about whether glass A with dark brown contents went in front of me and glass B with dark brown contents in front of my friend, or vice versa. After i offered to taste one of them we had a little chuckle as she describe how even after trying to memorize "right hand pepsi, left hand root beer" the whole way to our table she could still get them confused. I asked why she had to remember both and suggested it might be simpler to worry about only one of them. Just remember "right hand pepsi". She asked "but then how do i know what the other one is after i've served the root beer?" Then she blushed and laughed and thanked me for the tip.

I think a lot of language foibles come from similar situations. We are taught rules A vs. not A ad B vs. not B by rote without much actual understanding of the rules. It's hardly surprising that we get them confused.

Erm, I think I meant "prollalility" but now I'm not so sure. I definitely had it wrong though.

I think my idea with this is that when you know how to properly spell and pronounce a word it can provide a key to other related words.

We have a lot of young people in the San Francisco bay area who are learning English in school. They don't speak it at home and don't have an awful lot of context. A phrase like "a wolf in sheep's clothing" doesn't have a lot of meaning. Even if they develop good language skills they often don't have a lot of cultural reference points. No Mother Goose, no Aesop, no Jungle Book, no Dr. Seuss. They're often unfamiliar with a lot of common idioms and proverbs.

There's a lot of prejudice that comes into play when we hear heavy accents or misused words. We often think that the person is either uneducated or not too bright. Poor language skills can mean that your resume or college entrance essay gets passed over.

I'm not saying that this means we shouldn't play with language. Play is good. It's just that sometimes people think that words and phrases are spelled exactly as they hear them or as they read them and they can be embarrassed later on or even have their earning potential reduced.

My pet peeves? I have a few:

--Advertising phrases like "A New Tradition of holiday gifting" (WTF? How stupid do you think "we" are? How can a tradition be new?)
--Using "Gift" as a verb
--Using the word "we" in this forum to suggest that your personal concern is everyone's. It's okay to have a personal concern. Really.

Rob

....Using the word "we" in this forum to suggest that your personal concern is everyone's. It's okay to have a personal concern. Really....

Agree with that peeve,,and ada couple ,, those who think cause they been on here for several years have some sort of say over what new users have to offer and of course those who offer grammer lessons

WOW……I used to have some pet peeves but like all pets they can bite their owners. Just simply don’t feed them and they will go back to the wild.

i hate (sorry, dislike) people who use i instead of I.

If you start a line with i on the Adobe forum, you end up with italics.

Somone deprecated the use of aks instead of ask. According to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, a dialectic version is ax(e) pronounced /aks/, and is derived from Old English ascian or acsian. So the switch goes back a long way.

"Agree with that peeve,,and ada couple ,, those who think cause they been on here for several years have some sort of say over what new users have to offer and of course those who offer grammer lessons"

The sentence above is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. If someone offers you a "grammer" lesson, perhaps you should really consider taking them up on the offer.

And to start this grammar lesson I would like to point out that “Pet Peeve” although being snappy, oooooo….nice pun. is an oxymoron.

Rory, you're right, strictly speaking, but although peeves are generally completely wild, a few have been reared in captivity and apparently some have become pets.