This comic seems relevant to the thread:
Bob’s Quick Guide to the Apostrophe, You Idiots
My pet grammar peeve is the use of possessive instead of plural or third person singular present tense, which was previously mentioned briefly.
This is my peeve because my surname happens to be a fairly common third person singular present tense verb, which for the purposes of this public board I’ll say is “Fries”.
I can’t tell you how many idiots think I spell my name “Frie’s”.
To add to my peevedness, say there is a popular product brand named “Frie’s”. I tell people my name and they automatically say “Oh, like the popular product!” I try to explain to them that no, that name is Frie and my name is Fries. Their blank stared response is, “No, the name of the popular product is Frie’s! I grew up on Frie’s, I know the name!”
“Well, I think I probably know my name, too, after 44 years. Look, maybe I can explain it to you this way. If I owned Frie’s, it wouldn’t be Frie’s, it would be Fries’s!”
Blanker stares usually follow, and I can almost see the wheels turning in their heads as they try to wrap their tiny brains around that one, at which point I finish my transaction and move on, trying not to get too depressed at the rampant stupidity amongst us.
Another one that irks me is that so many people have trouble distinguishing “between” from “among.” If the comparative refers to two things it’s “between.” If more than two, it’s “among.” How freaking difficult is that? Don’t say, “I can’t choose between the three of them.” JUST DON’T DO IT! Okay? :rolleyes:
Whilst in truth I agree with eris, I’m going to indulge myself anyway.
“Which” vs. “that”.
Think of it this way: you should never have the word “which” without a comma before it; you should never have the word “that” with a comma before it. You’ll get it right 99% of the time.
“This is the red car that I saw.”
“The red car, which is the one that I saw”.
pan
This is interesting. I personally don’t find “stupider” to sound strange to my ears, but when I taught English, there was a very rigid rule to forming comparatives and superlatives.
Words with one syllable get an “-er” or “-est.” Three or more syllables get “more” and “most.” Two syllable words ending in “y” get “-er” or “-est” (after the whole “y” to “i” thing); all others get the “more” and “most” ending. Hence, “happier” and “happiest,” but “more stupid” and “most stupid.”
Desert Geezer- you description of when to choose “between” vs “among” is, well, simplistic. You certainly can use “between” in cases of more than two. One notable example is geography. Heck, look here at the usage note for a better explanation.
As for good/bad, well…in informal writing (which I assume is the writing style on this board) there’s nothing wrong with using good and bad as adverbs.
“Lose” and “Loose,” though, don’t get me started on those.
Over the years at work I our office has seen memos circulated both on “lei vs. lay”, as well as “insure/ensure/assure.”
I no longer pleasantly and constructively point out to the lovely Ms. D that “a tad bit” is redundant. Nor do I correct her predilection for “lay.” That damn couch is none too comfy. But I’ll be damned if I’ll allow her sloppy usage to infect our spawn.
I used to be mildly troubled over having my work reviewed by folk who appear to be paid based on the number of "that"s they insert, who never saw a sentence that couldn’t be improved by the insertion of a comma or two, and who apparently believe avoiding use of passive tense and ending sentences with prepositions were the 11th and 12th commandments. Thankfully, it has been a while since I took any personal pride in the quality of my work.
Um - please realize that folk were not actually mistaking flower garlands for the act of placing or the past tense of reclining.
Me and her…
On the phone–“May I speak to Ms. Soandso?” “This is her.”
Between you and I…
Ten items or less…
“definatly” and other interesting permutations of spelling…
“prolly” makes me see red…
“wreckless” driving–so what are they bitching about?
Oh, and “alot” has to be the most irritating expression around…
:rolleyes:
when i was in the 4th grade, i had to write a paper in my english class.
when i got the paper back, it had A- on it. why not an A?
because my english teacher said that writing a lot as “a lot” was wrong, that it should be “alot”, one word!
an ENGLISH teacher, for god’s sake! :rolleyes:
Recently I have encountered a person who believes that ‘has’ is the correct word to use for comparison. For example: ‘Hungry has a pig.’
He also says this out loud. For example: ‘I’m has good a driver has Mark Martin.’
When he says that, which he does often, there is a noticable ‘h’ in the spoken words.
This makes me want to choke him.
Thanks for the cite, pulykamell, but nothing in it contradicted what I said. It added to it, but then explained that, when referring to entities the rule is between two,among more than two. My example (that “between the three” is wrong) was correct. 
Oh, and to quote Winston Churchill: “Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put.” I love that one.
Lorinada, just tell them “No, Fries like in Podkayne!”
99% of the time you’ll get a blank look. The other 1% you’ll have made a friend for life.
Perhaps you could tell us how you used that particular pair of words? After all, some folks have been known to misspell “alot” as “a lot.”
Monty: After all, some folks have been known to misspell “alot” as “a lot.”
Um, I don’t think there is any word “alot”: you may be thinking of “allot”, “to apportion, distribute”. Of course, I suppose some people could still misspell that as “a lot”.
As for “prolly”, that, like all other Pogoese, gets a free pass from me. Walt Kelly may have put dialogue in his comic strip that included expressions like “They been quiet so long I was feared they was sick” and “A octopus done got Albert” and “I din’t have no inkum last year and I ain’t gone pay no taxes”, but by God, he knew better than to mix up “its” and “it’s”. There’s a fine line between the casual informality of colloquial or dialect usage and sheer festering ignorance, and elementary goofs like that are on the wrong side of the line.
Since this is the pit, I’m going to start off by saying that I think most of you in this thread are total fucking idiots. You’re like bible-thumpers with a dictionary. As far as your generally being a dedicated bunch of ignorance-fighters goes, I can only assume that linguistics is the exception that proves the rule.
Somebody writes or says something that is 99% correct, and you just can’t let that 1% go because you’ve got to prove how overeducated you are. Nevermind that you are just parroting the same “I am so smart” grammar cliches that have been around for more than a hundred years, demonstrating not actual intelligence or grammatical skill, but merely an affinity for making uncritical and superficial judgements about people.
I don’t think any of you have any real understanding of the beauty of language at all. Why don’t you talk to somebody who has had a stroke and spent years having to learn to write or speak again, and bitch to them about your hangups with homonyms and apostrophes? These silly trifles are not where the magic of language lies… it’s all about being good enough, not being perfect. And we’re the only species on the planet that is good enough, maybe the only species in the universe that is good enough, yet this means nothing to you. You’re obsessed with… apostrophes.
I swear, you don’t know you’re born. I’m beginning to understand what Eco was talking about when he said that the search for perfect formalisms was killing Western Civilization. And that’s shocking, because normally I can’t understand a damn thing that he writes about.
-fh
Hey, all you ignorunt fuks (me, too). We done been flamed by a expurt! 
There’s no “e” in “judgments”.
I can’t quite figure out who has been whooshed.
There’s only one “e” in “judgments”.
Previous post? What previous post? I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Oh, my; how embarrassing. 
You are correct, kind soul. “Alot” is merely yet another misspelling. “Allot” would be the verb. Thanks.