'The word pedants' top 10 | It's specific, not Pacific...' blog discussion.

WhiteChristmas

Oh, and since we're doing creeping Americanisms, those things you keep your socks in are not called "draws".

abby1234519

KimYeovil wrote: »

I see writing 'for example' was too much of a struggle. Or even just 'e.g.'!

Again, you start off with a mistake. It is "I can not be bothered". If you meant "I cannot be bothered" that would mean you were typing from an impregnable hideaway. And, again, I wasn't crticising the use of abbreviations. But just because the OED has permitted a breach and a muddying...

The problem is that when one studies at GCSE standard, yes we study English Language but it is at a basic level and I can't even remember what we learnt.
My problem is "I write as I speak" so when I am doing an assignment, I have to proofread it and probably rewrite it so it adheres to the formal style my university demands. Also when it came to English Literature at A level it was purely focused on the literature and I do think the syllabus needs to contain a certain amount of english language tutoring, even one lesson every two weeks. I know my grammar etc is abysmal but I don't know any different!

27col

I've only just come across this thread. It is really good to know that I'm not alone. I am a pedant and proud of it. I would not dream of posting anything on a forum without spell and punctuation checking it first. There is no excuse to be wrong as the message box shows you when you are incorrect, before you actually post your reply. Sometimes, when I have nothing better to do, I look through my old posts and if I find a typo or suchlike, I just have to correct it, even though it is unlikely that anyone would be looking through my old posts of many weeks ago. Keep up the good work all of you and support us pedants when we are getting a bit of stick from the murderers of the English Language.

schiff

I have just found this thread and am not proposing going through 29 pages. So I may be repeating. I am surprised at M's original list.

Items 1, 2, and 4-8 you hear about twice a year, if that.
Item 3 - like - in that use it's commonplace. Part of modern day parlance, so not incorrect. Similarly with 110% - it is used so often for emphasis, it has to be treated as not incorrect.

The only true item is the one he makes light of - using would of where would have is correct. That grates.

Another pet hate is double checking which all Customer Services in the land insist on doing, whether they have previously checked or not!

schiff

abby1234519 wrote: »

The problem is that when one studies at GCSE standard, yes we study English Language but it is at a basic level and I can't even remember what we learnt.
My problem is "I write as I speak" so when I am doing an assignment, I have to proofread it and probably rewrite it so it adheres to the formal style my university demands. Also when it came to English Literature at A level it was purely focused on the literature and I do think the syllabus needs to contain a certain amount of english language tutoring, even one lesson every two weeks. I know my grammar etc is abysmal but I don't know any different!

I learned more about English grammar when I started French and German, than I ever did studying English language (as opposed to English Lit).

schiff

KimYeovil wrote: »

Young'uns pronouncing 'clique' 'click'.

'Deja vu' is now almost never used to describe a feeling of deja vu. If it is similar to something else you have experienced (or watched) then by definition what you are feeling can not be deja vu. Grrr. If it's a sequel it's not deja vu.

I went for a take-away to my local Chinese restaurant on two successive evenings and the words deja vu came into the greeting on my second visit (as she remembered me from the evening before).

I didn't even consider the grammatical accuracy, so astonished was I at a Chinese girl using a French expression to an Englishman.

She gave me a free bag of prawn crackers too, and I'm very partial to prawn crackers.

(Now you've got me really worried - is it possible to be 'very' partial. This is going to be drudgery if I have to think before I write everything. What on earth made me look in this thread?)

PS: for complete accuracy I did place an acute accent on deja (on the e), but Martin's beloved website doesn't like it and has substituted an exclamation mark - so I've gone back to edit it and removed it. I thought I'd better make that clear.

PPS: Just thinking about it, there should also be a grave (pronounced grarve) accent on the a of deja, but as it would look funny (ie odd) without the acute accent on the e, I've not tried it.

quoia

You mean DÉJÀ VU

zeeksquirrel

KimYeovil wrote: »

It is poor pedantry due to the number of petards.

I think the quotes around 'and' and 'but' should be single ones.

"Strictly grammatically" is very clunky - you should just be using one of those as it is tautological. Either (ironically) separate them with a comma or remove your own comma. That is, one from:

Strictly those are two sentences
Gramatically those are two sentences
Strictly, gramatically, those are two sentences
Strictly gramatically those are two sentences <- yuck

And you have omitted the 'a' before 'semi colon'. Not that those two words mean anything - 'semicolon' is one word not two .)

"Gramatically"?? - perhaps you mean "grammatically"!

broughton

My pet hate is caused by the confusion between I and me that has led to the widespread use of myself.

Give it to myself. The wife and myself...
if you want clarification, this link really explains it well.
http://www.wordsparkediting.com/theres-nothing-wrong-with-me-the-sad-tale-of-a-shunned-pronoun/

Flyboy152

quoia wrote: »

You mean DÉJÀ VU

How can you post accents and I can't?