Grammar Pet Peeves

[Senusret I]

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.

[SWTXBelle]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

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") 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?

[WinniBug]

Originally Posted by SWTXBelle

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?

OMG
YES!

I hate it when I see "puppie's for sale"

[DSTRen13]

I've noticed lately people keep using quotes to emphasize things - for example, a sign will read "OUR PRICES ARE THE "LOWEST" IN TOWN!!" instead of "OUR PRICES ARE THE LOWEST IN TOWN!!" It looks so stupid, and I see it all the time. Drives me nuts.

[luv n tpa]

Originally Posted by Senusret I

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.

We had to do peer editing in one of my English courses. I was the lucky student to be paired with Ms. Comma Happy. She inserted at least 40+ commas into my 3 page essay. I kid you not. I had to remove about that many from her paper. She even said to me as she handed it back, "It was really good except you needed a lot more commas."

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by luv n tpa

We had to do peer editing in one of my English courses. I was the lucky student to be paired with Ms. Comma Happy. She inserted at least 40+ commas into my 3 page essay. I kid you not. I had to remove about that many from her paper. She even said to me as she handed it back, "It was really good except you needed a lot more commas."

Like they are salt or something.

I'm the worst about seeing what I expect to see or thinking that I typed one thing when I really typed another. (Recently I wrote "right" for "write"; it's not like I don't know the difference.) In real life, I take a lot more time to proofread.

So, I'm a lot more driven crazy by people who have to correct other people on dry erase boards or memos or agendas than I am by the errors themselves. It's one thing if you honestly think the person doesn't know better or you want to help correct a careless error, but you're just a jackass if you have to circle stuff in red on the white board or mark up the memo and put it back in the principal's box anonymously (and yes, I have colleagues who will do this.) They aren't interested in correcting the error to spare the person embarrassment or make it correct: they just want to circle it to call attention to it and feel superior. It takes what was a grammatical or proofreading issue and raises it to a character flaw.