Grammar v.5
You know how much I love grammar, and how much it makes me cringe when someone spells something wrong or misuses punctuation, etc. And so many times when I write these posts, I mention how, now that I've said something to criticize other people, I'm going to have something wrong in my own post. Murphy's law. Actually, it's Muphry's Law. Thanks to Betsy, I've been made aware that this is an actual thing: "Muphry's law is an adage that states that "If you write anything criticising editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written." The name is a deliberate misspelling of Murphy's law. " (via Wikipedia) The article goes more into detail and provides a fun read.
Regardless, here are some fun grammar-y things I've collected over the past few weeks:
More for your reading pleasure:
6 Common Punctuation Mistakes that Drive Us Crazy: this misused apostrophe, the ubiquitous exclamation mark, the crazy comma, the misplaced semicolon, the quotation mark, and the blurring of text talk with real writing.
And...
Regardless, here are some fun grammar-y things I've collected over the past few weeks:
English PSA: weary (tired) ≠ wary (cautious). Peek (look) ≠ peak (mountain) ≠ pique (irritation). Striped (pattern) ≠ stripped (no clothes).
— Amanda C. (@DragonflightGal) August 24, 2013
SERIOUSLY. Why is the difference between it's/its so hard to understand? It's = it is. The end.
— Lisa Butler (@elembee_) August 28, 2013
PSA: even in instances of gender uncertainty, you cannot use "their" as a singular possessive pronoun. #grammar
— Betsy (@btransatlantic) September 22, 2013
More for your reading pleasure:
6 Common Punctuation Mistakes that Drive Us Crazy: this misused apostrophe, the ubiquitous exclamation mark, the crazy comma, the misplaced semicolon, the quotation mark, and the blurring of text talk with real writing.
And...
For detailed explanations of each of these (including one Seinfeld video), visit Lifehack.
I'm going to go re-read my post three or four times now, just in case.
People actually say "nip it in the butt?" Hahaha. I actually catch grammar mistakes on my twitter all the time, usually because I'm typing on my phone (so things like apostrophes sometimes get omitted). But I always just let it go unless the mistake has made my intent unclear. That's the whole point of grammar anyway. A lot of people think it's about memorizing arbitrary rules, and those rules don't really matter. But the point of grammar is to make our writing clear and concise, to help others understand the meaning behind all those words we've strung together.
ReplyDeleteSome grammar rules aren't really rules at all though. For example, apparently most people were taught that you should never end a sentence with a preposition, and that's not true. I can't remember where, but I just read a blog post where the writer referenced all these articles about it. Incidentally, it's funny to me that so many people would write articles about something like that. Anyway, I was taught that you should avoid it if the preposition is extraneous but don't worry about it if omitting the preposition would make the sentence read awkwardly. So, asking "where are you at?" is wrong because you don't need the "at" there at all. But asking "where did you come from?" is fine because you actually do need the "from" to make sense of the sentence, and no one would ever say "from where did you come?"
Also, I'm not going to reread this comment because I probably made a bunch of grammar mistakes just because we're on the topic. ;)
Also, why do I always leave the longest comments on your blog?
OK, some of those are TOO funny. my pet peeve- alot. aaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteNo people. Two words. a lot.
i still like 'you've got another thing coming' better than the correct 'think'. it sounds like you mean it more.
That list made me twitch! I think my biggest pet peeve is "waah-laah" instead of "voila." Proof that the average person does not read enough books.
ReplyDeleteI will admit that sometimes I do "their" in place of the singular pronoun when I'm in a hurry or only have so many characters left, but I'm aware that it's wrong. :-) That's half the battle right? Haha.
Oh, yes, the peek/peak thing drives me nuts! Also, when people have blogs that are their last names, like "The Johnsons" and they spell it "The Johnson's" What is the deal with that?? And yes, I'm looking at some of you big name bloggers! Not exempt from good grammar.
ReplyDeleteI'm just going to curl up in the feeble position and have a cup of expresso :)
ReplyDeleteThese are great.
What she said. LOVE this.
ReplyDelete