Grammar Police (What ticks you off?)

[ohiorod]

So they drop the "y"?

Totally and just yesterday, I heard a mother in a store say that she would not buy a toy that her son wanted until he “reds up the room”.

 

[Uncutsouthernboy]

Totally and just yesterday, I heard a mother in a store say that she would not buy a toy that her son wanted until he “reds up the room”.

That is totally interesting.

 

[NCbear]

I can't stand "stepped foot in [location]." The true usage is "set foot in [location]."

Oh, and "any more" now substitutes for "these days," in many people's speech. Unfortunately.

But the worst, for me, is "graduated high school" (instead of "graduated from high school"). Dammit, you graduate from a program or an educational institution!

NCbear (who grew up reading 1930s-1970s children's books that had been written and edited rather well)

 

[328982]

There are things that frustrate me, but I will leave this here:
Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language - YouTube

I do love Stephen Fry. I wish I could speak half as well as him.

Really, I can’t stand even to look at his glutted face.

 

[328982]

So, starting a sentence with a so, why? So annoying.

 

[Spartan727]

I have two things

I really can’t stand auto correct. These iOS up dates seriously can be horror.

One of the things lately that ticks me off -
When you pay someone to do a job,
When it comes time to do the walk through, and the said job you got a estimate for is no where near what was agreed upon. Then questioning about it - I am told “oh that’s good enough”
No where on the estimate does it say “good enough cost”

I didn’t ask for good enough, I want it done right.

 

[Spartan727]

I had a “professional” blind fitting for my home.
The person kept arguing with his helper saying
It’s “feet’s two feet’s “ I thought they were going fight.

 

[1eyedJack]

The thing that bothers me most is when people end their phrases with the the preposition “at”.

“Where’s it at?”

“I don’t know where it’s at.”

How about the correct way instead:

“Where is it?”
and
“I don’t know where it is.”

 

[NCbear]

"Supposably."

"Prolly."

And other obvious evidence that people don't read.

Oh, and "I need a . . . ." when ordering food instead of "I would like a . . . ."

What the hell? Do you really need that oversized order of fries with your Gigantic Biggun Thunder Burger? (Apologies to Good Omens.) Um, no, you don't. They're not essential to your continued survival. But you'd sure as hell like them. So use the correct word.

NCbear (who is astonished that literacy is as "gone with the wind" as manners, values, and so forth)

 

[Infernal]

There are a few that just rub me the wrong way. Adulting. A friend of mine told me how her daughter found adulting to be hard. I told her I imagine life is difficult for people who use adjectives as action verbs. She also uses “thot” instead of thought when she writes.

The other one I see a lot of is mabey instead of maybe. I’ve had adults insist that’s the way it is spelled.

If I were to do that my grade school grammar teacher would claw her way out of the grave and come looking for me.

 

[3063031]

When someone uses the word 'like', either written or spoken, as a thought-filler.

I was like listening to these two girls on like the bus, one day, and the first girl was like talking about a guy she like went out with and maybe she like likes him but doesn't like know for like sure and then the like other girl was like 'Yeah, I know what you like mean', and then I like started to like lose the will to like live and like the next think like I knew, I saw like the floor like rushing up towards like my like face.

 

[The Little Boy]

When someone uses the word 'like', either written or spoken, as a thought-filler.

I was like listening to these two girls on like the bus, one day, and the first girl was like talking about a guy she like went out with and maybe she like likes him but doesn't like know for like sure and then the like other girl was like 'Yeah, I know what you like mean', and then I like started to like lose the will to like live and like the next think like I knew, I saw like the floor like rushing up towards like my like face.

There is an episode from Modern Family where Claire shouts at Haley for speaking that way.


Oh, sorry, for speaking LIKE that!

 

[englad]

"Chauvinism". This word is often used by people as a stand alone word to mean misogyny or sexism. If it's not added with the qualifier "male" before that, it actually means an excessive, especially jingoistic form of nationalism.

 

[rtg]

So, starting a sentence with a so, why? So annoying.

Hahaha I do this ALL the time! I only recently realised. But I think it’s a way that I’ve adapted to speaking to try to prevent me from stuttering. I used to have quite a bad stutter when I was younger, and I still stutter at times, and the word I have difficulty with is always the first word that comes out... Like, I can’t even get the word out. And then it’s really embarrassing when people make fun of me because they don’t actually know or understand that it’s a legitimate problem I’ve struggled with for most of my life.

So, if I say “so...” as the first word then usually that’s a good buffer and it slows down my speaking and I can get the next word out

 

[Infernal]

A friend of mine has some quirks that I would guess are more of a speech pattern issue than grammar. Either way, it annoys the hell out of me. Most people who speak English natively raise the pitch of their voice at the end of a sentence to signify a question. He will do it in the middle of a sentence and then sometimes drop to vocal fry at the end. I don't know where he picked it up because he didn't do it when we met. He also picks up accents and speech patterns from people he spends a lot of time with. He worked with a guy from Ireland and out of the blue he starts to add Oxford English to his vocabulary. Imagine a 50-year-old white American man who suddenly starts to add random words to his daily speech that sounds like a young, very snooty Hermione Granger.

 

[Novaboy]

 

[1345864]

This:

"They ready for some football."
"They jealous 'cos they ain't us."


It's not they. It's they're. As in, a contraction of they are.
CORRECT FORM: "They're ready for some football." "They're jealous because they ain't us." (Yes, I know ain't is improper English, but I don't want to get too pedantic here).

It's irritating as hell. Apostrophes. Use 'em. Someone who uses they when they mean they're or their won't be taken seriously at all by me. The past two decades have seen the wholesale butchery of the English language.

*Apologies to non-English speakers here. You get a free pass.

 

[FRE]

Also, "Carrots are healthy.". Perhaps they are, but that's not what they usually mean. What they usually mean is, "Carrots are healthful.".

Only a living organism can be healthy. Food which imparts health is healthful.

 

[NCbear]

Totally and just yesterday, I heard a mother in a store say that she would not buy a toy that her son wanted until he “reds up the room”.

I've actually heard that a lot from Southern women of a certain age--saying they needed to "red themselves up," meaning to put on their (presumably red) lipstick.

My mother once told me when I was a pre-teen that it was a 1950s thing to say in the South, because every (white) girl wore red lipstick.

NCbear (who needs to go and get "red up" for this evening's family dinner )

 

[The Little Boy]

Also, "Carrots are healthy.". Perhaps they are, but that's not what they usually mean. What they usually mean is, "Carrots are healthful.".

Only a living organism can be healthy. Food which imparts health is healthful.

Oh, this is a very interesting piece of information!

"Carrots are healthy" sounds strange to me too, but I wouldn't have been able to put my finger on what was strange about it without knowing the correct option.

Thank you! ^_^