Grammar Policing Of The Day...

[BlooInBloo]

People who don't know that "diffuse" and "defuse" are different words really bite.

[racaulk]

1. I frequently see similar words misused here.

"affect" and "effect"

"looser" and "loser"

"advise" and "advice"

I often see pundit misspelled as "pundant" as well.

We all have our peeves.

[BlooInBloo]

2. Yup. Most of those get mentioned on a semi-regular basis...

I just wanted to add "defuse"/"diffuse" to the mix.

[Sal Minella]

6. Reign/rein is the one grinding me to a fine powder at the moment.

"Reign in" -- it doesn't even make sense. Have we come so far from the days of the horse that "rein" is a meaningless word now?

The other day I mentioned a film reviewer complaining that a director's talents had "gone down the preverbal crap shoot."

We seem to have gone from preverbal to post-literate without blinking.

Apparently parts of speech are no longer taught in schools, since "diffuse" is an adjective and "defuse" is a verb.

[Speck Tater]

13. Time to rain in them there grammaticle misteaks. nt

[BlooInBloo]

19. Of course it makes perfect sense. "I reign in France, but you reign in England"

:rofl:

[Sal Minella]

20. And it rains in Spain, and Tangerine La Bamba reigns in Bulgaria.

[BlooInBloo]

22. Y tambien necessita una poca de gracia!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

28. Indeed................

Your acknowledgment is noted, as you will not that the Queen spelled "acknowledgment" properly without having to look it up.

This is, in large part, why She is the Queen, and why Her rein is so, you know, really defuse.

[Sal Minella]

29. And why her loyal subjects (as well as the maybe-not-so-loyal ones, if they're smart) heap praise

upon her iffusively. Not noting the surprising dearth of final e or final-e or finale.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

33. There are some

not-so-loyal subjects. We call them "corpses." And they live under the ground in copses.

Sucking up to the Queen is an important part of being a loyal subject. This must be, or else the whole thing goes down that infamous crap shoot.

[fishwax]

36. diffuse is a verb as well as an adjective

But I've got no explanation for "gone down the preverbal crap shoot"--that's just :wtf: :rofl:

[Sal Minella]

42. Actually I can see somebody conflating usage of "down the chute" (like "memory hole" now) and "crap

shoot" -- the former meaning disappearance into the unknown, and the latter implying unknown outcome. But seeing the two combined that way was a bit of a jolt for this old grammar nazi.

I would imagine he tried to spell-check "proverbial" -- some exceedingly strange things happen linguistically when people are overly dependent on spell-check.

Thank you for sharing my amazement at that construction -- it's nice to have company in The Garden of Ridiculous Stressors, from time to time....heh.

[rzemanfl]

70. They taught the parts of speech when I was in school. I didn't

listen.

[SharonAnn]

98. "allude" instead of "elude", and "imminent" instead of "eminent"

along with the usual "effect" instead of "affect".

[madinmaryland]

3. irregardless is NOT a word.

:grr:

[BlooInBloo]

45. Irregardless, it gets used!

hhahaha!

Use/mention error? Or not-a-word error? You be the judge.

[Odin2005]

76. If people use it in conversation it's a word, no matter how much the grammar Nazis...

...protest otherwise. There are no objective linguistic reasons to claim that "Irregardless" and "ain't" are not "real" words. Methinks grammar Nazis should be forced to take sociolinguistics courses...

[madeline_con]

82. Irregardless is like normalcy.

Some Shmoe screws up and says something dumb, and dumber people repeat it because they think Shmoe knew what he was doing.

[Odin2005]

85. So what? languages evolve. n/t

Nobody speaks like Chaucer, anymore.

[Sal Minella]

93. And whenever Picasso spit on the sidewalk, it was art. Sociolinguistics and proper grammar have

precious little to do with each other, it seems to me.

I wouldn't study a knife fight in hopes of divining the Marquess of Queensberry rules.

[Odin2005]

97. There is no such thing as "proper grammar"

What is called "proper grammar" is just the grammar of the prestige dialect of the language.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. Moron / moran

Giggle

[SoCalDem]

32. troublemaker..I'm turning you into the spocksman..and don't you dare stock me

I'm series!!

[ColbertWatcher]

5. Here is an icon for you ...

[SoCalDem]

37. or

[Bobbie Jo]

7. their/they're nt

[Ezlivin]

8. Number One Error: The use of "it's" in place of "its"

People just habitually slip in the apostrophe to that third person pronoun; I don't see it added to "his" or "hers", however.

And once you start seeing it, it's everywhere. I've seen it in commercials, on billboards and proudly displayed on the Home Page of websites. It is amazing how often it's misused.

Sometimes it gets so aggravating that I have to do something. Below is a graphic found on a store's front page. I wrote and told them of the error and then recreated the graphic and sent it to them. All in vain. The error lives!

[Bucky]

14. Yes that bothers me to

too

[minalobata]

9. I have worked stories ...

... that refer to "getting undo attention".

I was once sent a headline that said "The rapists say drugs can help." Nearly got published.

They meant to type "Therapists".

[trumad]

11. Welcome to DU

[Shiver]

17. "I'll take 'The Rapists' for $500!"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

18. Jap Anus relations for $1000, Alex!

[Warren DeMontague]

10. I'm still working on "loose" v. "lose". I've found that in major NEWSPAPERS, for fuck's sake.

Let's run through it again: you LOSE your car keys. You LOSE an election. You have LOOSE change in your pocket. You LOOSE the dogs of war.

[Captain Hilts]

24. "Loan" is a noun, "lend" is a verb. 'Nuff said. nt

[zorahopkins]

53. "Quote" Is A Verb; "Quotation" Is A Noun.

I HATE it *hen someone says that got a "quote" from a contractor or an insurance company.

*hat they got was a QUOTATION.

"Quote" is a VERB.

"Quotation" is a NOUN.

Note: In protest of the continuing occupation of OUR *hite House by the illegal and totally corrupt Bush/Cheney regime of thugs and cronies, I REFUSE to use the letter between "V" and "X".

[Captain Hilts]

57. YES! That one puts my hair on end. nt

[ContinentalOp]

84. the dictionary says loan can be a verb.

:shrug:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/loan

[EFerrari]

12. LOL! Best nitpicking ever! I've been so bested.

:applause:

[SoCalDem]

35. bested is better than busted,

unless we're talking about big bras :rofl:

[Bucky]

15. I have a sneaking suspicion that...

NO, YOU DUMBFUCK! You have a 'sinking' suspicion.

Suspicions don't sneak, they sink! Ghaah!!!

[Sal Minella]

21. Where I come from, we have sinking feelings and sneaking suspicions. eom

[blondeatlast]

78. Raised in the midwest by a Southern belle mom--and that's how I always heard it.

Wouldn't a "sinking suspicion" eventually defeat the suspicion anyway?

I've a sneaking suspicion my usage will not change in that regard... :thumbsup:

[ContinentalOp]

86. I think you're wrong.

There's nothing wrong with "sneaking suspicion." I've never heard of a "sinking" suspicion. But it's pointless to argue since you've already pulled a Scanners and obviously aren't around to see what I'm saying. :P

[Starry Messenger]

16. My fave: tow the line

It's "toe the line". Argh. If someone is going to accuse someone of being a kissass at least get the cliche' right.

[Renew Deal]

25. You're loosing your mind!

:scared:

[Starry Messenger]

39. Your preaching to the quier!

:toast:

[blondeatlast]

79. You are mispelling alot, to. nt

[shugah]

90. i have heard various reasons for toe/tow

one about lining up for a race, another about boats... :shrug:

just to drive you crazy, i once saw someone type about "toting the line." ;-)

[VOX]

23. Don't forget: "Obama gave a good speach." n/t

[Bucky]

26. I poured over your report last night.

I get this image of someone's head as a giant coffee mug and everytime they lean over the paper to read it some of their brains splash over the rim onto the paper they're reading.

You "pore" over a report --- look so closely at the details that you can see its "pores".

I mean "it's pores", of course.

Of Coarse.

[trof]

27. read, read bugs me.

Did you read that book?
Yes, I read it.
We need a different spelling for one of those.

[ProgressiveFool]

30. Perhaps they compliment each other. /nt

[BlooInBloo]

31. Oh yah - that one too! What bugs me about that and mine is that it's clear...

that people truly don't know there's a difference.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

59. do they talk to each other?

Compliment - to say something nice about a person's characteristics or appearance.

Complement - to set off another object by the first object's shape, color, size. etc.

as in "complementary colors". Examples: Red-Green, Yellow-Purple, Blue-Orange.

[ProgressiveFool]

34. I have a theory

These mistakes will soon become an accepted part of written language, because there is no way that a spell-checker that can't check context will catch them.

[BlooInBloo]

41. That's the danger, of course, like "begs the question" is currently losing the battle...

against the forces of idiocy. Sigh.

[Odin2005]

88. If English had a half-ways phonetic spelling system there wouldn't be a problem.

Spaniards, Italians, and Greeks don't have spelling bees for a reason. German is not much different from English when it comes to pronunciation, and it's spelling is pretty phonetic, so I can't see why English's couldn't be.

[justabob]

38. martial/marshall

[BlooInBloo]

43. Heh - haven't seen that one yet. I assume "marshall law" would be the common mis-usage.

[justabob]

48. yes.... like fingernails on a chalkboard

[Obamanaut]

40. I offer up these for your viewing pleasure -

should have went
should of been
I seen three of them

[Sal Minella]

95. Being funny, my grandfather used to say.....

"If I would of knowed I could of rode, I would of went.
But if I would of went, I couldn't of et nothing nohow."

He was a language snob. He once heard a man say "Hey, him and me, we seen what you done" and over the years, as a mental exercise, he would try to get one more error into that construction. I doubt that he succeeded.
-----------------------------
Edit to add second line of Grandpa's quotation, which took awhile to pop up on the cerebral hard drive!

[ecstatic]

44. well since I'm surrounded by grammarians... Can somebody refresh my memory

on the "whom" vs "who" vs "whose" thing. :) Thanks in advance.

[soothsayer]

62. use whom when you would say him or her. use who when you would say he or she.

grammar girl explains it thusly: When you're trying to decide whether to use who or whom, ask yourself if the answer to the question would be he or him. That's the trick: if you can answer the question being asked with him, then use whom, and it's easy to remember because they both end with m. For example, if you're trying to ask, "Who (or whom) do you love?" The answer would be "I love him." Him ends with an m, so you know to use whom. But if you are trying to ask, "Who (or whom) stepped on Squiggly?" the answer would be "He stepped on Squiggly." There's no m, so you know to use who. So that's the quick and dirty trick: if you can't remember that you use whom when you are referring to the object of the sentence, just remember that him equals whom. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/who-versus-whom.aspx

So the tv butler sounding fancy by asking "Whom shall I say is calling?" is wrong, because the answer to the question is "HE is calling" not "him is calling"

Not sure what the mystery is on whose (unless it's who's versus whose). Whose bike is that? It belongs to my brother, who's a messenger.

[hootinholler]

46. WTF like 40 replies and NOBODY has pointed out this is not an issue of grammar, but vocabulary?

Jesus.

That really grinds my ass! I was expecting to encounter errant verb tenses, maybe the odd dangling participle. But really, a vocabulary issue, your example is one of. The prior sentence would appear to be a grammar issue.

:shrug:

-Hoot

[BlooInBloo]

47. (shrug) Yah, I thought about getting to that level of pedantry...

but decided it would take at least 40 replies to find anyone would might appreciate it. So I decided it wasn't worth the hassle of coming up with a better class-term that would serve as an umbrella for both types of mis-uses. There are other reasons, but that one suffices.

[soothsayer]

63. but not pederasty

[Liberal In Texas]

67. Or podiatry.

[Obamanaut]

49. If 'should of' rather than 'should have' qualifies, see post 40. nt

[zorahopkins]

52. Diction, Actually

I feel the proper use of *ords is called proper diction.

Note: In protest of the continuing occuapation of OUR *hite House by the illegal and totally corrupt Bush/Cheney regime of thugs and cronies, I REFUSE to use the letter bet*een "V" and "X".

[tjwash]

50. Hey...spell checkers are awesome, everybody should use won.

[BlooInBloo]

51. I think you meant "hay".

:P

[KoKo]

54. Cool....glad you are the "Grammar Police."

What would we EVER DO...without you "one-liner" idiot posters. :shrug: I guess we couldn't survive, here. :eyes:

[BlooInBloo]

55. Two lines, actually, but yah.

:P

[KoKo]

56. Glad you "owned up to it!" Creds......

:hug:

[BlooInBloo]

58. Glad it impressed you.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

60. Axed.

Instead of "asked". :banghead:

[Odin2005]

83. That so called "mispronunciation" has been around since Old English

In Old English texts one can find both "Ascian" and "Acsian". In Middle English these had become "ask and "aks" in different English dialects.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

61. the adverb shortage.

He ran quick :banghead:

It should be: He ran quickly.

2) The lack of past perfect tenses: I saw a guy on TV who said a tornado "spinned" instead of "Spun".

:banghead:

[Odin2005]

81. Nothing wrong with number 2. Strong verbs have been turning into weak verbs since...

...Old English. Compare English and German, German has retained a lot more strong verbs that have become weak in English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_strong_verb

[RebelOne]

64. Lead and led.

That drives me crazy. So many use lead as the past tense.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

65. To make the bomb not go BOOM, you cut the wires to diffuse.

:dunce:

:hide:

[ContinentalOp]

87. Well, technically yeah...

I guess you are spreading or scattering the wires. :P

[PeaceNikki]

66. Also, "alot" is not a word.

[blondeatlast]

80. As an ex-HS Eenglish teacher, that is probably the only common misusage

that drives me up the wall!

I don't know hwy that one annoys me so, but it does.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

92. All right is always TWO WORDS.

[Odin2005]

99. Depends on what one means by "word"

In speech the "a" is fused onto "lot" and is reduced from the vowel (as in "fate") to a reduced <ə> vowel, and, so in pronounced (in my neck of the moods), using IPA pronunciation symbols, as <əlat>. Hence the misspelling, "alot" more closely fits the pronunciation.

[Le Taz Hot]

68. "Conversate"

is not a word. The correct word is "converse."

[Sal Minella]

71. ...or conversant? Could that be the intended word?

[Sabriel]

69. I love anecdote/antidote, myself

It always makes me smile (while I cringe simultaneously).

One of my favorite student mistakes is, "It's a doggy dog world out there!"

[guardian]

72. Two categories of confusions that bug me

1. insure vs. ensure vs. assure
2. titled vs. entitled

[ddeclue]

73. The tension in the air was diffused after the EOD technician defused the bomb.

HA! I used BOTH words correctly in one sentence!

Beat THAT!

:rofl:

[JerseygirlCT]

74. Don't you hate when they do that?

Especially when they come to work right after lunch.

[Ms. Toad]

75. Needs fixed.

[Odin2005]

77. My pet peeve: the Grammar Nazis themselves.

Most of what they spew is nonsense, as anyone who knows anything about Sociolinguistics, there is not such thing as inherently "good" or "bad" in languages, only different dialects. There is nothing wrong with split infinitives, that BS came around because some idiot Grammarians thought that because Latin didn't have them English shouldn't have them. Ain't was a perfectly fine word until 200 years ago until it was marked out as bad because of classist BS

[ContinentalOp]

89. This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put. -nt-

[shugah]

91. did you know that VOILA

translates as "walla" on many internet sites? appalling, i know, but there you have it.

[Laughing Mirror]

96. Interesting

How do they translate voilà?

[XanaDUer]

94. "Lose" and "loose" Argh.

Nt.