Should of, could of but in the end just couldn't

DVardysShadow

ClootiesMum wrote: »

I think I've just found my heaven in this thread.....
But being from sunny Scotland I know I'm guilty of a horrible sin - seemingly it's a Scots trait to measure distance in time - How far is the local supermarket? 5 minutes down the road of course:o

CM

One of my bugbears - and this seems to be particularly common among Scots is "he has went".

"He has gone" or "he went" fine. But "he has went" - never.

grossbeak

My particular horror is the use of 'is comprised of' instead of 'comprises'...a common estate agent boob (as in 'the living area is comprised of'...).

And then there's the perennial 'I'm going to lay down'. Lay down what? A burden? A trail? Enshrined in Dylan's wonderful song 'Lay lady, lay; lay 'cross my big brass bed'. I have visions of an egg-laying woman draped on the furniture. The word is 'lie'.

grossbeak

And while we're at it I really, really hate 'bored of'. The phrase is 'bored with'. There's even a clothing business called 'Bored of the High Street'. Astonishing.

Pound

I love how supermarkets use the word better instead of less, e.g. "better than half price." because they know some of their customers will get confused about why 'less' is a good thing

sarahg1969

"The reason being is because...."

What are you on about?

I was lying in bed last night thinking about these things, and the "lay down" thing was one of them. I forgot it this morning, though.

I read this in our local paper the other day, about a lady who was found in the street with head injuries: "She was led on the floor...". Eeek! When I emailed the editor about the mistakes, he claimed it was the fault of the police because they wrote the press release.

She was sat, she was stood - I think that's may be quite a northern thing. My family all do it, but we've trained the children not to. I've caught our youngest correcting his Nan on quite a few occasions. How embarrassing!

I get annoyed when people talk about an "amount" of things as well, when they mean number.

ellay864

Oh I am so glad to read there's so many other grammar pedants out there. Every day on my journey to work I cringe when I have to wait at a T-junction facing a banner outside a small pub/restaurant offering 'Private function's proffesionally catered for. Corperate facilites available'
And yes I have checked every word of this - both mine and those I've quoted - before I've dared to hit the 'submit' button lol

wealdroam

And now for something slightly different...

From The Daily Mail...

*max*

Oh, I really like this thread! All of those examples annoy me, and I'm foreign, like a previous poster.

My top ones are:

Brought for "bought"
"Their so funny"
"You should of got the cheap one"
"Your a good friend"
"I should of went home" (2 of them!!!)
"You was wrong"

And my winner is....."It took me ages to write my vowels before the wedding"

So, no problem with your consonants then? Aaaaaaaaargh!!!

sarahg1969

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1264937/Millions-spent-5-day-mantra-eating-LESS-vegetables.html

Aaaargh!!

anamenottaken

DVardysShadow wrote: »

The em-dash derives from printing, where there is also a en-dash. The difference is that the em-dash is the width of a lower case 'm' and the en-dash, surprisingly, the width of a lower case 'n'. Correct usage - so I am told - is for the dashes in this sentence to be em-dashes. And the en-dash alone should appear in this sentence.

Prior to word processors, only the typewriter was generally available and the hyphen had to do in both roles. The em-dash came in to general use with word processing. Because the rule is so straightforward, your word processor should know which dash to use when you press the hyphen key - hence word will be seen to pt in longer dashes.

Typewriters had one key to do double duty as a hyphen or a dash. To use as a hyphen, you didn't have a space between it and the two parts it was connecting. To use as a dash, you had a space before and after.

Word processing will change a hyphen to a dash if the operator puts in a space. Then if the space is removed, the dash remains.