As in, doesn’t matter at all to you.
- Anyways instead of Anyway
- your instead of you’re
- their instea or they’re
and a couple others…
2 and 3 are horrible though. These completely change the meaning of a sentence :(
My pet peeve is people thinking they are being clever by complaining about the supposed incorrect usage of literally as figuratively.
People, including famous authors, have been literally (not hyperbole) using the word as an intensifier, and therefore, figuratively, since 1847, e.g. F Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Dickens, and William Thackeray.
Did we change the definition of ‘literally’? | Merriam-Webster - https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/misuse-of-literally
This one is great.
Y’all is completely fine to use. It was a mistake for English to lose its distinction between second person singular and plural. Either we accept the word “y’all” or we go back to saying thou and thee, either way we can’t just keep on awkwardly dancing around not having a distinction between second person plural and singular.
I am not in defence of but actually annoyed by:
Using if instead of whether. For example: “I will check if the window is open”. This means: “if the window is open, I will check”. What people mean to say is “I will check whether the window is open”.
Also, using was in hypotheticals instead of the correct were. For example: if I were going to check whether the window was open, I wouldn’t be standing here. Not “if I was going to check […]”.
Ah good one. Less vs fewer is another like this. IDGAF the distinction there either
I do. If it’s countable, it’s fewer. Fewer people, fewer houses. If it’s incountable it’s less. Less rice, less water.
Putting the punctuation outside the quotes (or parentheses) when the quote is only part of a sentence. I.e. He said “I need to go now”.
Most of it, as long as it’s understandable I don’t care. Language is about making yourself understood.
Anything is acceptable if it’s for comedic effect.
In Dutch you’re supposed to write “Volgens mij” (“in my opinion”), but it’s pronounced more like it’s one word. So I feel “volgensmij” flows better
volgens mei niet!
I’m perfectly fine with pretty loosey-goosey interpretations of when to use semi-colons. I realize that there is a specific use-case, but in reality it’s just used for the most part as a sort of elongated comma; where the intention in the writing is to have a longer pause than a normal comma would.
And I’m absolutely fine with that. No one is really clear on the real semi-colon usage anyway. I’m relatively sure that the last sentance in the previous paragraph is the actual correct usage technically, but who knows? And more importantly, who cares?
That’s not how you use a semi-colon; you use it when you want to show a logical connection between what would otherwise be two separate sentences.
Exactly my point. In my brain, that’s exactly how I used it. The two statements were logically related, but were separate statements. The fact that the second statement didn’t have it’s own subject-object-verb is (in my mind) irrelevant.
“Y’all”
I will die on the hill that it’s more efficient and neutral than the alternatives.
English has to bend over backwards to make up for the fact that it doesn’t have a natural plural 2nd person form.
Ye Y’all Youse (Dublin)
“Y’all” and the plural “all y’all” are part of my daily vocabulary. And I’m in no way of southern origin.
First we’re all like “Thou is too casual, gotta use the plural second person instead.” Then oh no, turns out number in pronouns is actually useful sometimes, but thou sounds old fashioned now, so we just gotta re-pluralize the second person. And then you get y’all.
I like y’all, but I almost wish we could just bring thou back.
For years I have said that y’all is the best thing to come out of the south.
Yinz is at least as efficient
I recently realized that w’all needs to be shakespeared too. Following the pattern of other languages, y’all and w’all are missing in English.
Also, I shakespeared the verb shakespeared, in reference to Shakespeare making up new words by following patterns among other words.
I won’t argue against w’all. I’m fine with it in principle. But it’s not something I think I’ve ever said, or ever heard anyone say.
Anything that is used colloquially but technically isn’t correct because some loser didn’t like it 200 years ago. To boldly keep on splitting infinitives is a rejection of language prescriptivism!
Singular they. I’ve had this opinion since long before I even knew about non-binary people. Using “he or she” to refer to a person without specifying gender is clunky as hell.
but singular they isn’t incorrect in the least. anyone claiming otherwise has some agenda to push in spite of the facts of it’s use for a good long while
It’s not, but with… Political views as they are, it’s gotten a lot of pushback. People don’t even realize they use it regularly.
“Someone called for you”
“What did they want?”
Bam. Easy. I was stoked when magic the gathering changed card wording from “he or she” to “they” because it cleans up the wording so much.
A good point I heard though is that singular “they” is used when you don’t know the person’s identity. To the extent that it could be multiple people involved, hence the use. Obviously, it’s at slight odds with “someone” in this example, but still.
Fun fact though, we do actually use “they” in that way in Polish, in old-fashioned military slang, like “Where’s private Kowalski? They were supposed to be here”. (Edit: I think that might be used when addressing them directly, so this might be a bad example, but then there is no version in English since “you” covers all genders and numbers) I don’t know if non-binary people here actually use it.
Political views as they are, it’s gotten a lot of pushback
Yeah, the comment above mixed up grammar nazis with actual nazis I guess.
aluminum
This is a correct spelling. Not the only correct spelling, but one of them
I will also die on the hill that its incorrect
I’m of the opinion that so long as it is understandable it does not matter. English was once written as it sounded and there was no spelling consistancy. Those who were literate had little issue with it.
Some related reading: https://ctcamp.franklinresearch.uga.edu/resources/reading-middle-english https://cb45.hsites.harvard.edu/middle-english-basic-pronunciation-and-grammar
Edit: Okay my rant is more related to spelling than grammar but still interesting.
Ending a sentence with a proposition is just fine. Picky people whom I’ve only seen parodies of on the Internet go “oh you ended your sentence with a preposition I have no idea what you mean by ‘He went in’ maybe you could explain what he went into? A jello mold? A ditch? What did go into?”
You asked if he went into the store and I said he went in, you know what I meant because of CONTEXT CLUES.
I’ve never met anyone who’s ever been this picky but I’m ready to bite them if I ever find one.
It’s not grammatically incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition. It’s a common misconception that it is a rule, basically because one guy argued in favor of it back in the 1600s and had some support for formal writing in the 1700s. But it’s never been a broad rule, and even in formal contexts it’s not a rule in any current, reputable style or usage guides (so far as I know, at least).
Some more info on the topic: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/prepositions-ending-a-sentence-with
I only know of this “rule” because of a joke.
A new student is looking for the library and stops a passing professor to ask, “Excuse me sir, can you please tell me where the library is at?” To which the professor responds, “Here at Harvard, we don’t end our sentences with prepositions.”
The student without missing a beat says “I’m sorry, can you please tell me where the library is at, asshole?”
(Not sure if I remember exactly how it should be written it, apologies if I got it wrong)
Did you mean to say, preposition instead of proposition?
I think that since you’re aware of typos and context clues you knew that was the case.
I think they are asking because many people don’t know the difference
I love to end my sentences with a proposition, you wanna fuck?
What makes that a proposition and not a simple question?
