as a nit-picking virgo's virgo of a professional writer/editor, all of the above bugs the bleep outa me, too... excellent thread, ginger!
The mistake I despise the most? People mixing up 'then' and 'than'. I wonder what teachers are teaching children, and if the teachers actually have an adequate grasp of the English language to be able to teach it properly...
The language error that bugs me most is when people use "should of" and "could of" instead of the correct "should have" and "could have." "I should of called Mom on her birthday." Arrgh! Wrong! It's "I should have called Mom on her birthday." "You could of cleaned the cat's litter box." Wrong! It's "You could have cleaned the cat's litter box." I know "should have" contracts to "should've" and that sounds like "should of," but that doesn't make it right. "Should of" doesn't make any grammatical sense, and it's the kind of thing that confuses kids, and people learning English as a second language, to no end!
Sanjuricus is right, I've never heard anyone refer to being drunk as pissed in the US. In Australia pissed means drunk. The brain is a fascinating thing. Your fingers can function separately from your stream of consciousness. It doesn't even have to be typing. I often write numbers backward from the number I am thinking to write. If I think 24, I sometimes write 42. And I'll do the same thing you are describing, only it's not just with homonyms. There are a couple other words I find I typed when proofreading that were not the words I consciously thought I was writing. For example, if I thought and intended to write 'to the' or 'if it' I'll often find I wrote 'the the' and 'it it' respectively. My fingers have a separate mind of their own*. Another thing I find myself doing is writing ahead of my thoughts. You would think your thoughts were faster than your fingers, and you would think your brain didn't 'think' faster than your conscious thoughts. But I will repeatedly write the next word before I thought it, sometimes skipping the word I'm actually thinking at that fraction of a second. It's not that my fingers have clairvoyance. But I think it's that part of our brain is ahead of the conscious stream. After all, you do know the end of sentence you are about to think before you get to the end of it. It's only when I see the wrong 'their/there/they're' or 'too/to' repeatedly that I think the person consciously used the wrong word. And there are some common typos like writing 'you' instead of 'your' that I don't know why I make, but I do it again and again, and I see other people do as well. I don't know if those are keyboard design typos or brain typos. *There are actual studies of people with brain damage to certain parts of the brain that demonstrate we have a large amount of brain activity outside our conscious stream, including independent motor function you would think needs conscious direction but which doesn't. In one study, a woman who couldn't see to describe or draw the angle of a slot in front of her, could nonetheless, put her hand into the slot correctly. Some part of her brain could 'see' the slot and line her hand up to match it, but the part of the brain that could 'see' the slot was not the conscious part of her brain.
I mentioned this earlier, some of those times are typos. I know because I find myself making that mistake and I have no problem knowing when to use which word.
This cracked me up: Not only is "irregardless" a word, but it's probably the best word of all time. Here's why. He doesn't make a good argument except (taking his word for it) that the word is in Scrabble dictionaries.
In Australia they had magnetic trucks and metal roads and I kept wondering, what the heck? Eventually the mystery was solved.
I can believe it. I tried the word 'rape' only to be told by the little man who lives in the back of the computer that it isn't a word. He plays Scrabble to his own rules and when he's losing he gets quite nasty. Like Sat-Nav Cyril who lives in the glove compartment because he argues with my husband, he thinks he's got all the answers. This red wine is reeaaaally good. Got to go get a re-fill.
I kind of enjoy this misuse. Not only does the person not care, but they don't care that they're incorrect in their expression of how little they care. I find it funny. I'm torn about this. Is it an error, or is it dialect? I realize that the dialect no doubt came from the error, but I think that a time comes when a dialect has its own existence. Now, that's not to say that I would _ever_ accept this in remotely formal writing - nor would I accept "I could care less." But I'd be torn when writing dialogue - does the character think he's saying "should've" or does he think he's saying "should of"? How could you find out? I'm seeing a character from the American South (some parts; the South has many dialects) saying: You should of gone to the store yesterday. I might could go tomorrow night. The "might could" is, IMO, absolutely dialect. What is the "should of"? I can't decide.
I would have thought GC would have been better multi-quoting using the button on the far right of the edit bar below a post? I treat dialogue as a special case. If a character would understandably use incorrect grammar (and also spelling and punctuation in their writing, which may be read quoted in the story text), then that's how it should be written. But that's a matter for character 'design'. In the narrative any such errors are, of course, a no-no.
Aren't we all learning here......shouldn't there be some lea way giving? Of course if posters want their work to be published they will increase that possibiity by being fluent in writing the English language. But do we really need to be that critical? Not everyone here has a degree in English literture, a lot of us are writing for fun, plain and simple. As far as I can see nearly everyone who has commented here or have shown agreement in this subject has made typos, grammar, spelling errors at sometime or another. Have we got that petty or elitist, we have to jump down anyone's throat who makes a mistake. I've always seen this forum as a teaching aid to new and aspiring writings (like myself) but it's turning into a rabble who love to belittle anyone 'they' consider untalented (not one of them) I say he who is 'perfect' can cast the first stone, otherwise stop chucking the ruddy bricks
I rarely see anyone jump down someone's throat about their typos/grammar/etc on here (unless the post is almost incoherent), and no one in this thread has pointed a finger at an individual and told them they're 'untalented' (I don't recall anyone doing that in the forum - could you point it out, please?). But really, you can't have it both ways. Either you don't want these things pointed out or you want this to be a teaching forum.
Why would you think that? I've never posted that way before. I mean, I will here because it matters, but I'm used to replying to different people in different posts on every other forum I post on.
I stand corrected -- it is a word. It's just that it's an irregular word, and one that is always improper. If it is used, it is always used improperly. The only exception would be in a game of Scrabble, or perhaps in a crossword puzzle. It shouldn't be used in a novel, unless an author is trying to demonstrate that a character is uneducated. I don't see this as petty or elitist. Petty would be pointing out these errors in a post that is not asking about grammar. I think a thread like this is perfect for this site -- there may be some errors that someone doesn't even realize are incorrect, but can learn that they are, in fact, incorrect, from a thread like this. (A couple that I think might qualify are the should/could of instead of should/could have usage, or the could/couldn't care less phrase. I don't think talking about them in the abstract is elitist or condescending. Saying, oh yeah -- remember when [Member Name] wrote that post and misused "their?" That would have a chilling effect and would be mean. A thread like this is instead a perfect opportunity to learn.
We are all learning, yes, but the problem is when a poster's posts (plural!) are littered with errors, not with just the occasional typo. Consistent errors in any writing need to be fixed, otherwise the quality of the 'official' writing of the poster (and any intent to fix said errors) has to be open to question. ----- Sorry, I wasn't meaning to have a go at you, it was just a suggestion. I think when someone posts lots of replies individually, it gives the mods the impression that someone is trying to up their post count or something. Not all forums have multi-quote capability, so it's not something I see commonly used on the forums I frequent. Hell, one forum can't even track a user's posts so they can see new stuff when they next log in, so this one is at least reasonably up-to-date.
I do want my errors pointed out. I want to learn, I want to improve. I am a little confused over the post. When I first read the thread it seemed to me that it was ridiculing posters who made errors. I have re-read the post and it merely states, paraphrasing: If writing is your thing, for God sake get it right, learnt from your mistakes and strife to improve. I think I need to stop speed reading and take it down a notch....thank you for pointing out my error. I did not mean to be a reactionary.
I will take you at your word, so here goes (for this post only): Overall, not awful, just a few glitches.
Personally, I'm sensitive about the use of apostrophes. It amazes and irritates me that people - intelligent people! - can grow up reading and writing the English language and not understand how to properly use apostrophes. A few weeks back I joined up with St John Youth. I'm not sure what the deal is in other countries, but in NZ St John is an organization of mostly volunteers who handle medical emergencies. They're the paramedics and ambulance drivers. This is an organization that you would expect to be, well, organized, right? You'd expect them to have it together. When I filled out the forms they gave me, it hurt me. Apostrophes were never used properly, and even though there weren't all that many words, there were still several spelling mistakes. For instance, "Parents phone number", and "Capitaion fees." Also, when I read the declaration at the end that the parent/caregiver has to read and then sign, I realized that it began with, "I understand . . ." these conditions, etc., and somehow ended up saying, "St John will take care of your child . . ." I'm not trying to sound like a snob here, or anything, but I value the English language, at least in its written form, and this kind of stuff pains me. I had to fix up the mistakes on the form before I turned it in.
This. Also, I once had a boss. Who writes like this. Any time he pauses. He just starts a new sentence.
