What overly common grammatical errors make you want to tear your hair out the most?

They're, their, and there.
Two, too, and to.
It's and its.
We're and were.
Whose and who's.
Where to place commas and semicolons.
Your and you're.
Whether to put "..." or "...." (there is a difference!).
Whether and weather.
Who and whom.
Putting an apostrophe to make something plural.
Then and than.
Non-capitalised letters at the beginning of sentences, of names, or of places.

It looks very jarring to make so many of these errors, especially when most of the rules are so basic. The errors that abound with these should have been left in first grade with the gold stars and "Good job!" stickers. As a teacher assistant, I help grade a lot of papers for the 10th grade English class, and every single person in the non-CP (College prep) class makes these errors. It's not just once or twice; it's every paper for almost half the students. Maybe I'm a grammar snob, but that is so basic and makes one wonder how someone got to their sophomore year with all those grammatical errors still clinging to their brain. Oh, and it's not just at school, it's on these boards a lot of the time as well. I can't believe there are people on here that are 22, 25, 30, even almost 40 years old writing, "I'm going too work on Christmas Eve because there having a party over they're. Their going two give out present's to" (that was so difficult to type like that).

So what grammatical errors do you shake your head at?

 

You pretty much listed them all. They're more annoying than spelling mistakes. How are you supposed to have respect for the person debating against you when makes grammar mistakes more suitable for a 10 year old? It's even more annoying when that person later does not take you seriously because you're a few years younger than him.

Death to all idiots.

 

yeah.... what's with people constantly putting apostrophe's where they don't belong?




..

 

Must confess my grammar can, at times, be pretty bad. I just get engrossed in conveying the point and don't worry too much about those smaller details.

Some people must just not have a flair for grammar. Though honestly most of those examples are utterly glaringly obvious. A proper proof read would weed them out. So to miss them can only be a sign of being lazy or ignorant.

 

I get a kick out of redundancies like:
"ATM machine"
"PIN number"
"very unique"
"in which we live in" (I blame Paul McCartney for that)
But my biggest gripe is when people say "quote unquote". Especially when they do the accompanying finger thing.

 

Personal information number number...
Oh, the infamous "quote unquote". It's "quote, END quote"! I never say the actual "quotes" part, but if I want to put a lot of emphasis on a word, I'll use it. Such as something like, "They want her to look 'normal' by wearing certain clothes", because just who and what determines normalcy in one's dress or behaviour?
I wouldn't want to be the person who has to read their job applications.

 

There's one.

 

I don't know if this was intentionally ironic or not....

 

I'm sure it's intentional.

 

lol

 

How about 'lose' and 'loose'


"I'm going to loose my mind...."

or worse when people don't take out E's

"I'm looseing my mind!"

AHHHHH!


Peace and Good Grammar,

Sarah.

 

WOW i didn't know it was "quote, end quote"... i feel so, decieved, so niave!

Peace,

Sarah

 

how about "interact" machines? lol

 

My two pet peeves is the word "irregardless" and "'needless' to say..." ohh and
also "most unique."

 

Gah! I just thought of another one: the use of "them" as a pronoun meaning "him or her". Example: "If you love someone, set them free." I don't mind if it's used in colloquial speech, but it really grinds me when it's used in a book, poem or song. But I guess Sting wouldn't have had a hit single if he sang

Free, free,
Set him or her free.
Free, free,
Set him or her free.

Well, it's a good song, irregardless....

 

Well, I'm from Croatia, so few grammatical errors will happen, but I don't want anyone to lose his hair because of me!

 

I actually don't mind when people use that, because saying "him or her" sounds terrible, pretty much in any context. In my everyday speech, I just use "him" and I don't fucking care if you consider it sexist.

 

You're not doing "good", you're doing "well". Everyone says good, and it's pisses the hell out of me.

 

In old English, there used to be a word that was used to refer to either gender. I don't recall what it is, but it was used in place of "him or her". Later, it got ditched and replaced with "him". Then, it was decided that was wrong, and used "him or her". Of course, that's not exactly wonderful for the flow, especially, as you said, in a song or poem, so people use "they", which is grammatically incorrect. There’s also the infamous s\he (how the hell are you supposed to pronounce that?). It's a lovely cycle. I have no idea why people ditched the original word. It would be much more convenient if we just went back to having that one word, wouldn't it?

 

I constantly have to correct people on that one. "I liked that book. It was written real good". Ugh. What about people who don't change a word to an adverb when they're supposed to? I recently heard, "They weren't playing proper". It's properly. I also don't like that even though I put in two spaces after a period, this message board automatically changes it to one space.

I bet men would get in such an uproar if everything they read were written as "her", "she", or "womankind". Never in my life will I believe that "him", "he", and "mankind" all include women. You never get a real feel of exclusion until you're the one who is being excluded.