I don’t have a problem with typos that may be accidental. Fast typing has resulted in many a “teh” for me. Also, for some unknown reason, I often type apostrophes outside of their appropriate location (didnt’). It’s not that I don’t know how to do so correctly; it’s a result of speed typing.
Where I do have a problem is incorrect word placement or usage. One that bothers me is when people use “that” when they should use “who”. To whit:
“Many people were invited to my party, and those that came had a great time.”
And don’t get me started on the “who” or “whom” thing.
I’ll second (or third) the “allot/a lot” thing. It’s a matter of knowing the correct word. (same with the “should of”)
On losing ground to “popular usage” I present this:
I was taught that it is not appropriate to say, “I feel nauseous”; the correct phrase is, “I feel nauseated.” That is “nauseous” has the same effect as “noxious” or “poisonous” – it is an adjective. Now, I read in my dictionary (Webster, btw),
Is this to say that since it’s popular it’s OK?
As I told my students, “Please don’t write the way you speak.”
My US History teacher said she taught English for 3 or 4 years before switching to history. In the overhead notes she gave us, she would always write “effected” when she meant “affected.” It drove me nuts!
Also, I agree with Spritle on the who/that mistake.
Yeah, I’m talking about “cum” in its sexual meaning. I hate it as a noun, and I hate it as a verb. The verb is “come,” the noun is “semen,” thank you very much.
I plead the Fifth Amendment as to where I’ve seen it.
“Websight” for “website” seems to be a fairly common error. (Also “copywrite” for “copyright”) What I find amusing is that when I misspell a word in a Google search, often I still get hundreds of matches.
No, see, it put the apostrophe in “parades.” And I don’t care how one parses it, I will go to my GRAVE battling against the fool idea that “parade’s” is the plural of “parade.”
One of my biggest pet peeves is Ensure vs. Insure vs. Assure. I keep trying to tell people you can’t INSURE something is correct without paying a premium – you want to ENSURE it’s right. Assure is usually ok, but the first two are constantly switched.
Apostrophies are a pain – you’re vs. your, it’s vs. its, etc.
In fact, I’ll second all the previous references. In my opinion, spell check is the leading cause of MIS-spellings today. (Just because it’s a word doesn’t mean you used the one you wanted!)
FWIW, Chilidogg (and WEW and FireUnderpantsBoobs, I live in Australia, and had never heard the word “oriented” until I saw it on television once. Everyone I know pronounces it “orientated”. Therefore, I would guess that it is a regional thing. Much like aluminum vs. aluminium.
Sorry, caircair, but according to good ol’ Merriam Webster again…
Main Entry: **in·sure **
Pronunciation: in-'shur
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): in·sured; in·sur·ing Etymology: Middle English, to assure, probably alteration of assuren
Date: 1635 transitive senses
1 : to provide or obtain insurance on or for
2 : to make certain especially by taking necessary measures and precautions intransitive senses: to contract to give or take insurance
**synonym see ENSURE **
A lot of the ones mentioned above are annoying to me, as well, but my biggest pet peeve is the then / than thing. It drives me up a wall when I see those words misused and I have to struggle mightily not to correct it every time I see it.
The other one that’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me is “all the sudden.” It’s “all of a sudden.”
It’s instead of its: the worst of all and certainly the most frequent.
Loose instead of lose is a close second. For loose as a verb, I always quote the Battle Hymn of the Republic: “He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword.”
Third worst and weirdly frequent these days is where instead of were. How can people keep sticking the h in there for no reason?
I’ve said I will puke if I see one more person write Semetic — it looks like “emetic.” FYI, the real spelling is Semitic.
Croation happens a lot, but people’s fingers have a long-ingrained habit of typing many words that end in -ation, so one little word that ends in -atian is just asking to be misspelled.
As for the possessive in -'s:
It descends from the Old English genitive that ended with plain old -s (at least in some genders & declensions). Doesn’t the German neuter still have a genitive in -s? The genitive ending with -s goes all the way back to Proto-Indo-European.
The apostrophe for non-pronouns got inserted in (I think) the sixteenth century, when Modern English was new. Somehow, literate folks (who knew not ye historie of Old English) analyzed it as a contraction of “his” and for a while they took to writing out “his” in full. For example: “the King his horse” instead of “the Kings horse.” An Elizabethan tune of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Booke type might be headed either “My Lady Marys Dumpe” or “My Lady Mary Her Dumpe”. (Obviously, the theorie of contracted “his” broke downe when it came to the feminine pronoune).
Anyway, that must be how the apostrophe got in there: the genitive -s that had been in English from the earliest times got mistaken for a contraction. This also explains why the apostrophe didn’t get into genitive pronouns (his, hers,
its), and why millions of semiliterates are confus’d today.
orginally posted by cazzle
FWIW, Chilidogg (and WEW and FireUnderpantsBoobs), I live in Australia, and had never heard the word “oriented” until I saw it on television once. Everyone I know pronounces it “orientated”. Therefore, I would guess that it is a regional thing. Much like aluminum vs. aluminium.
Hey! I asked for someone to tell me I wasn’twrong!
orient - 1 a: to cause to face or point toward the east; b: to set or arrange in any determinate position esp. in relation to the points of the compass; c: to ascertain the bearings of 2 a: to set right by adjusting to facts or principles b: to acquaint with the existing situation or environment 3: to direct toward the interests of a particular group 4: to cause the axes of molecules to assume the same direction.
I don’t really want to nitpick this to death, and as long as we understand one another, it’s not very important. It’s just a little thing that bugs me, and I’ll have to live with it. It kind of fits in there with the way people say “relator” instead of realtor, and “nucular” rather than nuclear. Oh, well…
I can’t remember whether it was Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, or maybe Chaucer, but in a college class I read “the King his horse,” clearly referring to the horse of the king. Trying to show off to the prof, I suggested that maybe this is where our system of writing possessives came from–maybe they just replaced the “hi” with an apostrophe before the “s,” using the masculine form only. The professor just said Hmmm, maybe. I don’t think he was all that impressed. But I still think that’s where it came from.
As for the OP, I agree with most of these offerings. I think the most common is its/it’s. I haven’t counted, but I often think I see it wrong more than right. Of course this is one case where the possessive does not have an apostrophe, so maybe it blows the theory about the possessives.
