Language Lovers Unite

Ben Schott, whose self-portrait you see here, is a London-based writer, who is also a contributing columnist to the New York Times with a blog called, "Schott's Vocab." Schott describes his blog as "a repository of unconsidered lexicographical trifles -- some serious, others frivolous, some neologized, others newly newsworthy." In a recent column, Schott invited "co-vocabularists to exorcise their linguistic pet peeves and vocab vexations by posting a comment."

Three hours after his invitation went online, there were more than 650 comments, and a day later that number doubled. Many were comments on comments, and many cited the same peeves, but all of them shared one common sentiment: a fervent desire to banish the peeves and to preserve the standards of the proper uses of language. All the comments were best summed up by this one from the UK: "Thank you, all the people whose comments I have read so far. I had despaired of the American nation but you have shown me that there ARE people in the USA who care about correct English."

I surfed through the comments found almost two dozen peeves that were referenced more often than others. They are listed below in no particular statistical or hierarchical order (although some of you will know). Nor did I provide any grammatical explanation. If you are a language lover, you will understand.

- Irregardless
- He goes versus He said
- Misuse of apostrophe
- Like versus as
- Passive voice
- It's versus its
- Agreement of subject and verb
- Lie versus lay
- Double negatives
- I versus me
- Misuse/Overuse of like
- Less versus fewer
- Overuse of amazing
- Anxious versus eager
- Overuse of awesome
- Affect versus effect
- Preposition ending a sentence
- Should of versus should have
- Where is it at?
- Your versus you're
- Nouns used as verbs
- Heighth versus height

Please share your own pet language peeves with us.

 

 

 

Follow Jerry Weissman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PowerPres

Comments

[classicalgeek]

03:57 AM on 05/14/2009

I forgot: preventive vs. preventative
who's vs. whose
hung vs. hanged
than vs. then
figurative use of "literally"
misuse of compare with and compare to
misuse of that and who
decline of ought and shall
ad vs. add
site vs. sight
apostrophes on plural forms
principal vs. principle
eminent vs. imminent
compliment vs. complement
advise vs. advice
council vs. counsel
farther vs. further
peak vs. peek

Before I start foaming at the mouth, here's a site with every grammar mistake you can possibly think of:
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors

[Jerry Weissman]

10:17 AM on 05/17/2009

Dear classicalgeek,

Thanks for your contribution. Glad to meet another member of what seems to be a shrinking group of people who care enough at language to start foaming at the mouth.

I'm planning a follow-up post to this one on Huff and on my own site: www.powerltd.com.
I would like to reference you and your contributions and suggestions. If you'd like to remain anonymous, OK. Either way, please let me know via: [e-mail].

Thanks again,

[Mim709]

11:58 AM on 05/12/2009

Here are a couple of mine, based on having learned a word by ear rather than reading:

Tow the line, instead of toe the line.
Pour over a text, rather than pore over it.

And of course, our old friends discreet vs discrete.

[Figural]

11:52 AM on 05/12/2009

Alright versus all right
Use of 'all right' other than quoted speech
Administrate versus administer
At this moment in time
The data is

[classicalgeek]

02:31 AM on 05/12/2009

Placement of "only" in the sentence (most often it's before the verb, it should modify what it's supposed to modify). E.g. "Only I want to be your friend" (nobody else does); "I only want to be your friend" (I want it but I don't want to put much effort into it); "I want only to be your friend" (the way most people mean); "I want to be only your friend" (nobody else's friend); "I want to be your only friend" (don't be friends with anyone but me); "I want to be your friend only" (not your lover or colleague or anything else).

Loose vs. lose
Objective and subjective cases of pronouns misused
They're, their, and there misused (and the oft-used "thier")
Improper use of the subjunctive "If I was drunk, I apologize." vs. "If I were drunk, I would have elevated blood alcohol."

On the other hand, "they" as a singular, non-gender-specific pronoun doesn't bother me in the slightest. If it was good enough for Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the many other luminaries of English literature who used it, it's good enough for me.

There is a difference with ending a sentence with a preposition that requires an object, and a stranding preposition. Stranding prepositions (prepositions without objects) are native to all North Germanic languages and are an integral part of English. Otherwise you get such artificial-sounding sentences as "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put."

[OnTheCusp]

01:48 PM on 05/11/2009

matter in fact versus matter of fact
troth versus trough
anyways versus anyway
acrost versus across
would of instead of just plain had
excape versus escape
ministration versus menstruation

[DeeLuzon]

12:11 PM on 05/11/2009

try AND do something versus try TO do something