Grammar Pet Peeves
 

This drives me crazy. The proper use of the possessive form of "it".

The possessive form of "it" is "its". No apostrophe.

EXAMPLE - "Gamma Phi Beta can be proud of its 134 year history."

"It's" is short for "it is".

EXAMPLE - "It's not how you start, it's how you finish."


Thank you. I feel much better now.

Do you have any other grammatical pet peeves?

they're....their.....there

your and you're

I admit that I ALWAYS have to think twice before I type its and it's.

where and wear

They're, there, and their

basically all homonyms that get confused

I mentioned somewhere else about the "dear meat" post I saw on another board. They meant "deer meat". the wrong homonym gives it a totally different meaning.

Work-related issue:

Correct: non-profit
Correct: not-for-profit

INCORRECT: non-for-profit

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Did you know that nonprofit is also correct? It took me a while to get used to it, but one of my agency's "union" type orgs doesn't hyphenate.

Weary being used in exchange for either wary or leery. In the past few years I've noticed, especially online, that the three are used interchangeably. Weary means something else entirely!!

lose & loose

allowed & aloud

Then and Than

pass and past.

Bernie Mac past away. INCORRECT
Bernie Mac passed away. CORRECT

Comma whoredom.

Read your sentence out loud. If you didn't pause there, take out the commas. Idiots.

ETA: Dammit I just made myself paranoid about whether that comma belongs there.

lol - (and it's "damn it":p) YES - there are far too many comma-crazed writers out there.

eta - although maybe you used "dammit" in a colloquial sense. If so, I apologize.

I also dislike the mailboxes that say "The Brown's". Again with the apostrophe! What is it The Brown owns? Do you perhaps mean The Browns, as in more than one Brown?

Yep - that's no problem. I used the hyphens for clarity among the words. Non-for-profit makes me want to do bad things.