Your single biggest grammar pet peeve?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Bring this with you". It should be "take this with you".

Take is for when leaving

Bring is for when arriving.

E.g.

Take this home

versus

Bring this to the party

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Going to hospital.

Got a call from a friend who is a no native speaker who said “sorry I missed you. I’m in the hospital.”

I said “oh no, what happened?”

She said “My aunt is sick!”

I said “Friend, you are AT the hospital!”

You are a bit pedantic.

Let's hope when you are visiting a relative who is in the hospital someone decides not to point our your grammatical mistakes at that moment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Going to hospital.

Got a call from a friend who is a no native speaker who said “sorry I missed you. I’m in the hospital.”

I said “oh no, what happened?”

She said “My aunt is sick!”

I said “Friend, you are AT the hospital!”

I am not a native speaker, like your friend, and I find your corrections extremely annoying. They won't be your friend for long if you keep talking down to them like this. Perhaps, learn their native language and see how you do with such fine nuances.

But are you not interested in learning the quirks of language in America? "I'm in the hospital" does in fact mean you are sick or injured. If you don't want to learn, are you ok with misrepresentating yourself?

It becomes more important if you were to say you were in jail versus at jail...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t read all 23 pages but it’s seeing apostrophes in dates and ages, eg. “In my 20’s” or “Back in the 80’s”. Makes my eyes bleed.

I hate misplaced apostrophes, but that's actually correct in those circumstances even though it's not possessive or contractive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Verbal in place of oral. Verbal means in words. Written instructions are verbal.
Any modifier used with the word unique. Unique is binary, it means one of a kind. Something can't be very unique, somewhat unique or a little unique.
Assassination used to describe run of the mill murder.
It does not grate on me as a pet peeve because it is so rarely used and known, but I really appreciate when I see datum used in non technical writing.

Oral instructions are verbal. They consist of words.

Oral instructions come out of your mouth. Verbal instructions are written on a page. People don't like the word oral because it sounds dirty so they say verbal and it's often wrong.

Aren’t instructions written on a page…written instructions?

They are also written, yes. But if we speak on the phone and I tell you how to open the door, you received oral instructions, not verbal instructions. If I emailed you how to open the door, you would have received verbal or written instructions.

[Anonymous]

Nonplussed is used incorrectly 95% of the time. Or, sometimes people use it in a way that I can’t tell if they are using it the old “correct” way or the new way that means the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it "fewer" than five widgets, or "less than" five widgets?

Which is correct.

I know I is fewer widgets, it I the number that throws me.

Fewer if you can count them, less if you can’t (like grains of sand.)

My trick to remember is "less cake" "fewer cupcakes"

[Anonymous]

This isn't grammar so much but when people say safeTY deposit box. It's just a safe deposit box. This happens a lot in TV shows/movies.

[Anonymous]

Drive safe!

It's safely. Drive is a verb, therefore you need an adverb to describe how you're going to drive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who use "and I" incorrectly and it should be "and me" but they're being pretentious

And they don't realize that they are making themselves sound like idiots. It's like people are afraid of using the word me.

I find that people who don't understand how grammar works do this a lot. They think saying "I" sounds smarter, so they always say that. They think saying "well" is always right, when it's really only when being used as an adverb - how are you doing? I am doing well. How are you feeling? I am feeling well. Nope! This time it's good because it's an adjective, not an adverb. Same with further - it sounds "fancier" than farther, but people use it wrong all the time, and the right word is usually farther.

I think a lot of people speak quickly and sometimes mess it up bc they don’t actually recall what they just said so they say “I” inadvertently… not to sound smarter. I do this and I’m sure others do too.

People who are such sticklers for grammar are such jerks. It doesn’t actually make you a better person. F off.

[Anonymous]

Your welcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Drive safe!

It's safely. Drive is a verb, therefore you need an adverb to describe how you're going to drive.

Be safely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t read all 23 pages but it’s seeing apostrophes in dates and ages, eg. “In my 20’s” or “Back in the 80’s”. Makes my eyes bleed.

I hate misplaced apostrophes, but that's actually correct in those circumstances even though it's not possessive or contractive.

No, it's not correct at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn’t read all 23 pages but it’s seeing apostrophes in dates and ages, eg. “In my 20’s” or “Back in the 80’s”. Makes my eyes bleed.

I hate misplaced apostrophes, but that's actually correct in those circumstances even though it's not possessive or contractive.

No, it's not correct at all.

Wrong. Both are correct.

[Anonymous]

When people leave off the -ed. For example, when I was in a breastfeeding Facebook group, people would say “My baby is jaundice.” No, your baby is jaundiced. I’ve also seen people leave it off of the word biased. They’ll write “Maybe I’m bias, but…”. I believe these are the same people who are writing things like “would of” instead of “would’ve”.