I am a closet Grammar Nazi.
I have LOTS of Peeves (and not pets either, these are commercial-sized livestock.)
First, if you want to see what morons are writing
nowadays, visit HERE:
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/Oodles of fun except when you see morons getting into powerful positions,
like people who wrote "ANNUAL REPORT OF THE LIGHT-HOUSE BOARD OF THE
UNITED STATES TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY FOR THE PHYSICAL
YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1872. (Margoliss & Moss fine books, accessed Nov 23, 2008)"
Someone with that kind of influence on spending non-trivial amounts of other people's money should know the term
fiscal year, or be FIRED and replaced with someone who DOES know.
Some of my other personal peeves are:
blonde / blond :
The grammatical gender should match the sex of the person. If you write 'the blond I saw on the bus' I know up-front it's a man or a boy. If you later write that the 'blond' was a girl, I now know you write like an idiot. See also
premier vs
premiere - a different rule applies and it's another great check on if the writer is paying attention to the words he is writing.
'THEY' used as a singular in
writing :
Take a risk and use 'he' and 'his' as was used as recently as 40 years ago, just for spice. It's still correct, and really not sexist at all. My 5th edition of Strunk & White's style
Manual of Style sezz it's okay to use, so I'm game. 'Man' and mankind' are also still correct terms for the set containing all peoples.
"For Free" :
No, moron. You can get something
free, or
for nothing. 'For free' just makes you sound stupid. See also: "Free Gift!" in written and spoken advertisements. Hey stupid, if it's not
free, it's ummm not a
gift, right? Duh.
"There's three things I want to show you..." :
Hey dip-wad: '
There is' means you are going to indicate ONE of something or an uncountable amount of stuff; another reason why
they as a singular sounds jarring to me.
Its and it's :
Get them right or die. The possessive does NOT take the apostrophe. You will also be shot for using the apostrophe to form plural nouns or worse, to form the third person singular tense.
Trying to sound edjimicationalized by sneaking extra syllables
into words to make it sound like you know how to use longer
words than you can really handle :
"Orientate' for
orient or align, 'Finalize' for
finish,
pre-planning and 'pre-condition,' (hint: planning already has to happen in advance of the event being planned, right?) I even once heard
electronical.
Ending sentences with prepositions :
This rule was made up in the 19th century, but it's still a good gauge. Listening for whether or not a speaker can rearrange word order on the fly is an indicator of the presence or lack of other sorts of mental flexibility. Think of this as a real-time IQ test.
FLOUNDER :
News flash - that's a
fish. You can eat them, too. When something is dropping, failing to stand up, sinking, or taking water over the gunwhales, the word you should use is
founder.
Lastly, two hilarious books to read if you enjoy peevery are "Strictly Speaking," and "A Civil Tongue," by Edwin Newman, who headed the usage panel of the American Heritage Dictionary. Dry, acerbic, and incisive wit abounds.
