What are your grammatical pet peeves?

I cringe when I see the personal pronoun "I" appearing in the wrong part of a sentence or phrase.

What are some grammatical goofs that annoy you?

 

Overuse of the decorative comma. The person who first said "Whenever there's a pause in speech..." needs a smack to the gob.

 

"Irregardless".

To be honest, it doesn't "annoy me". It sends me into a towering rage.

 

'his' in place of 'he's'. UGH. It's NOT THAT HARD.

Your/you're, there/they're/their, to/too/two... just the basic grammar rules I would hope people would start learning early on [I started learning these in first grade!].

Also sentences that are difficult or impossible to comprehend. Those are so hard to read and it just drives me mad.

 

Not grammar, but it's annoying when reporters call bacteria viruses and vice versa.

For grammar I think using 'good' when the sentence calls for 'well' stands out.

 

The usage of "I could care less," when the writer intends "I couldn't care less."

Also, the use of "of" instead of "have" in conjunction with should have or could have. It's not I could of had cake. It's I could have had cake.

 

Also "would of" instead of "would have". I can understand how it happens in speech, but how can anyone possibly make such a mistake in print??

 

I like how you think, Ed.

 

Their, they're, you too; you need to learn to control you're temper's irregardless of the way other people right. At least, thats what mama told I.

 

Cringe, cringe, cringe! At least you didn't also throw in a "supposably".

 

Mixed and muddled tenses... had gave, had drank, had ran.

Also, confusion of one time or multi-event... "This morning, whenever I was doing my hair, the phone had rang and it was Tommy."

 

I hate when than and then are mixed up. Mostly I get mad at myself when I mess the two up because I should know better.

 

They're/There/Their, for sure.

 

If it's in speech, you're spelling it wrong.

It's, "would 'ave".

If it's written, then they spelled it wrong.

 

Except typos are sometimes the reason. My auto pilot brain will sometimes write the wrong one despite my conscious brain thinking the correct one.

This is another one that can be a typo, nothing more.

 

You're not the only one! There are times when I look back over a freshly posted post and I see these glaring errors and I have to rush to edit it praying no one quotes my post before I've had a chance to fix it.

 

Yes, typos happen! That still doesn't justify how often mistakes like those are made. Some people really don't know or don't care enough x)

(and now, I was left wondering if my post was properly written!)

 

The Oxford Comma! The Oxford Comma!

*shields himself from crowd*

 

a.k.a. the Harvard Comma.

(just to represent both sides of the Atlantic)

 

I get very annoyed when professional speakers, such as newscasters, can't distinguish between subjective and objective personal pronouns.

 

I've mentioned this before in this forum. This is my most hated mistake - should of, could of, would of ... ARRGH!

 

Your vs. You're irks the shit out of me.

 

I would rep you, but the forum won't allow me too.

Personally, the "should have/would have/could have" turning into "should of/would of/could of" drives me nuts.

And because right now the trend is for writers to purge commas, it drives me up the wall when I see a sentence that needs about 3 commas for it to make sense, and they're just not there! Usually found in self-pub books and I just wish they'd found an editor before publishing!

 

The number of aspiring writers on here who write the personal pronoun 'I' in lower case ( i ). What's up with these people?

 

Or just dispense with capitalizing anything. But most writing errors irritate me on writing forums. I figure grammar should almost be second nature to a writer.