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Grammar Pet Peeves |
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This page last updated
June 10, 2010 |
OK, I know this has nothing
to do with roads, but besides being a road geek,
I'm also quite a grammar nerd, something my wife, thankfully,
appreciates about me. As such, bad grammar bugs me,
sometimes to the point of making me cringe. With the advent of the
Internet (thanks Al Gore!), we now get to see on a regular basis just
how horrible many people's writing skills and associated grammar and usage
really are. Even with spell-checkers and grammar-checkers (which
are not always correct and should not be relied upon), the number of
grammar, spelling, and usage errors that I see on a daily basis is
atrocious. To maybe help stem that tide, as well as to make myself
feel better for trying to do something about it, here is my list of the
most egregious and annoying errors I see. I know this can be a
touchy topic for some people, and I don't mean to offend
anyone or sound holier-than-thou, so please don't take anything below that way.
I know I'm not perfect either. All I'm really trying to do
is impress all my former English teachers.
:-)
Me and I
As a child, many of us were scolded by English teachers for saying
things like Me and Johnny went to school. It should, of
course, be Johnny and
I
went to school. As a result, people often use "I"
in every complex subject or object. However, there are times when
using "I" is wrong and using "me"
is correct. Without getting into the technical details,
the easiest way to know which to use is to drop the other person from
the sentence and see how it sounds. For instance, if you want to
know whether to use "me" or "I" in the sentence Bob came with Suzy and
I
to the movie, drop "Suzy" and say what you're left with: Bob
came with I
to the movie. That obviously sounds wrong, so try it with "me" instead: Bob came with me to the movie. That sounds
better (and is correct), so the sentence should be Bob came with Suzy
and me to the movie. In either case, it's generally considered
proper to put the other person before "me" or "I".
Us and We
In this case, I'm talking about sentences like Us men are going to
the game or That is up to we employees to decide. Are
those correct? Just like with the me/I situation above, drop the other half of the we/us
couplet and see if
it works: Us are going to the game and That is up to we to
decide. Both obviously are wrong. The correct shortened sentences
are We are going to the game and That is up to us to decide,
so the corrected original sentences would be We men are going to the
game and That is up to us employees to decide. Again,
all you have to do is simplify the sentence and see which pronoun
"sounds right".
Your and You're
"Your" is the possessive of you (What's your name?);
"you're" is the contraction of "you are" (You're going to
freak out.) Here's a sentence that uses both: You're going
to change your mind. If you're not sure whether to use "your"
or "you're", ask yourself if you can substitute "you are"
in the sentence; if you
can, then use "you're"; if you can't, then use "your".
There/Their/They're
"There" is the location (Go over there!); "their"
is the possessive of they (What's their problem?); and "they're" is the contraction of "they are" (They're going to
freak out.) Here's a sentence that uses all three: They're
going to drive their car there.
Its vs. It's
"Its" is the possessive form of it (What is its problem?);
"it's" is the contraction of "it is" (It's going to rain.) Note that
"its" is the only possessive that does not use an
apostrophe (see next topic.) Here's a sentence that uses both:
It's taking its sweet time. If you're not sure whether to use
"its" or "it's", ask yourself if you can substitute "it is";
if you can, then use "it's", if you can't, then use "its".
Apostrophes vis-à-vis
plurals and possessives
Apostrophe misuse with plurals and possessives is rampant. People
either use too many apostrophes or none at all. But it's not that
hard to know when to use an apostrophe and when not to.
Possessives always have an apostrophe (except for its, as
discussed above); plurals don't. It's that easy. Here's an
example that uses both: What color are Bob's eyes? There
are two eyes (plural) that belong to Bob (possessive). For
singular nouns that end in an "s", you still add an apostrophe and
another "s" at the end for possessives: The boss's office.
But to make a plural possessive, you generally just add an apostrophe;
the other "s" is assumed: The parking lot has space for 20 customers' vehicles. Note, however, that adding another
"s" after the apostrophe
in such a situation is considered acceptable, although not standard.
Decades (e.g. the 90's)
When referring to decades using numbers, the 90's is acceptable,
but the '90s (the apostrophe implies that "19" is missing), or
even just the 90s are preferable.
Mute point
I guess people think the term is mute point because the point
that is being made should be muted (silenced) since it's irrelevant, but
the correct term is actually moot point.
Could care less
You could care less about grammar? Really? Then that means
that you really do care about it! After all, if you could care
less about something, then you must currently care some amount about it.
What people mean to say when they (mis)use that expression is that they
don't care at all about something. Therefore, the correct
expression is could not care less, or couldn't
care less. Since you can't care any less about it, you're saying that you care
nothing at all about it. I think people
have just gotten lazy in their speech patterns and couldn't care less
has become could care less. But it's still wrong.
Hung vs. hanged
When pictures are put on the wall, they are hung. When a
person is executed by dangling them from a rope, they are hanged.
Faze vs. phase
I would like to say that people who get this wrong don't faze me, but
I'd be lying! Phase is a noun meaning "stage"; faze
is a verb meaning "to bother". Phase can also be used as a
verb in the terms phase out or phase in. Here's a
sentence that uses both: I was not fazed when my job was phased out.
Don't worry if you didn't know this one, though-- my wife is a logophile
and she didn't know this one until I told her! Even the media
frequently gets it wrong.
Daylight Savings Time
The correct term is Daylight Saving Time (no "s" on "Saving"). More appropriately, it should be daylight-saving
time. Why? Because it's a time when we're saving daylight, a
"daylight-saving time". Daylight Saving Time (capitalized)
is also a proper noun and can be written thusly.
Misuse of "Standard Time"
Speaking of Daylight Saving Time, this one is more obscure, but annoying to me just the same. Many
people think that the term Standard Time means the time that is
the "normal" or "standard" time in the place where they live. So to sound official
and/or "proper" when scheduling appointments or meetings, especially
with people in other time zones, they'll say something like The
conference call starts at 9:00am Central Standard Time. What
they don't realize, however, is that to someone who understands these
things, they just sound silly most of the year. Why? Because
the term Standard Time refers to the time in a place when it's
not Daylight Saving Time, in other words, the "unmodified" time. For instance, 9:00am Standard Time is
10:00am Daylight Saving Time (DST). So during DST, whenever
someone tells me to call them at 9:00am Central Standard Time, I always
ask them if they really mean 9:00am Central Daylight Time (CDT) or if
they meant 10:00am CDT. After I enjoy their confusion a little too
much, I suggest this easy solution: just say Call me at 9:00am
Central Time. Ninety-nine percent of the time (no pun
intended), that's sufficient. The only exception to that would be
if you're in one of those weird (or perhaps enlightened) places that
doesn't observe DST; then you need to be explicit or do the conversion
for the person on the other end since they probably won't know how to
figure it out anyway.
Who vs. Whom
Many people use whom to sound proper or even snooty, but there
are only certain cases when you should use whom, and you should
generally always use whom in those cases, so it's not always
proper and it's never snooty. Whom should be used when it's
the object of the sentence, but that's the technical explanation.
The easiest way to know when to use whom is to ask yourself if
the question you are asking (or the question form of the statement you
are making) could be answered by saying "him" or "he"
(I'm using the masculine form for simplicity; feel free to substitute
"her" or "she" respectively.) If the answer is "him", use whom. If it's
"he", use who. For instance, (Who/Whom) is going to
the store? Answer: He is. Therefore, the correct
question is Who is going to the store? Another example:
(Who/whom) do I love? Answer: I love him.
Therefore, the correct question is Whom do I love? One last
example that's a little more complicated: Bob, (who/whom) you
probably remember, is back. Change it to a question:
(Who/whom) do you probably remember? Answer: You remember him.
Therefore, the correct sentence is Bob, whom you probably remember,
is back.
Irony vs. Coincidence
Ironically, the term ironic is often misused. Most of the
time when people say something is ironic, what they really mean is it
was coincidental. Irony is when something happens that
would not be expected. For instance, a fire station catching on
fire and burning down is ironic. However, someone being
convicted of murder 10 years to the day after the murder happened
is just plain coincidence. There's nothing special about that day
that would make you think they would or would not be convicted, so it's just a
coincidence that it happened on that day. Only use ironic
when it's something that on its face would be unexpected; otherwise, use
coincidental. By the way, most of the things in Alannis
Morisette's song "Ironic" are coincidental, not ironic.
.75¢
I always love seeing signs in restaurants or stores advertising
something for ".75¢"
(or ".25¢",
".50¢",
etc.) I get the item in question and then I give the cashier a
penny and tell them to keep the change, much to their profound confusion
and my gauche delight. What they don't realize is that
.75¢
is 3/4th of one cent, so one penny pays for it, leaving 1/4th of a penny
as their tip. Of course, what they really mean is the item is 75
cents, which is correctly written either "75¢"
(no decimal) or "$0.75"
(3/4th of a dollar.)
Improper use of quotes for
emphasis
I hate seeing signs like "Do not" park here! The quotes
around Do not are intended to emphasize those words, but that's an
improper use. Quotes are properly used to indicate spoken dialog, a direct
quotation from someone, a title, an undefined term, a term used outside
its normal usage, a nickname, or irony or sarcasm. So a sign
reading "Do not" park here! could be interpreted as the author
either saying "do not" in a sarcastic manner, as in "do not (ha ha) park
here", or that it means something not consistent with its normal
meaning, for which I can't even think of an example. Instead, the
correct way to emphasize something in print is to use capital letters,
bold type, italics, and/or underlining, e.g. DO NOT park here!
Improper use of all caps
Some people I know insist on writing something like My MAC
gets a lot of SPAM when I access the WEB. Neither MAC nor
SPAM nor WEB are an acronym for anything, so they should not be written in capital letters
unless it's for emphasis (as noted in the topic above.) Barring
that,
the sentence should be My Mac gets a lot of spam when I access the web.
Mac
has a capital M
because it's a proper noun; the other terms should all be lower-case
although Web
with a capital W would also be acceptable since it's a shortened
version of
the proper name World Wide Web.
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