Why oh why do so many people abbreviate etcetera as ect.? It’s abbreviated ETC.!! :smack:
Eve’s drop
infact, incase, aswell
up date
When did words that were once two become one and words that were once one become two?
mute point
irregardless (or irreguardless)
One of my personal favorites:
I acted as any descent human begin should.
They must be the same people who pronounce it “eck-cetera.”
And for whom * = asteriks.
That Asteriks has a lot of gaul.
I went through my old boss’ old e-mails earlier today so that I could compile a post about his illiteracy.
I aborted the post for the following reasons…
Most of our old e-mails were purged to make room on the server.
About half of his e-mails were ghost-written, by me. (so they were near-perfect)
When he did write e-mails himself he used the spellchecker most of the time (but if it suggested the wrong word, he’d still pick it. For instance he meant to say ‘state’ but the word he typed must have been so bad that it suggested ‘status’. He accepted it. So the line read “California Status Fair”)
If at this point you’re thinking he must have been dyslexic, I don’t think he was. Too much of his spelling was ok for that.
I still found some gems though.
He was a firm subscriber to the rule whereby if a word’s last letter is ‘s’ then you MUST put an apostrophe before it.
He used ‘up date’ and ‘up grade’ wherever possible.
He’d use both options where each option makes the other redundant (such as “I’ve have”)
He took care to make sure his e-mail was good and still it was terrible! (This rules out the possibility of him simply being a lazy e-mailer)
I find it hard to understand how people who seem to be able to speak the language fairly well, have such a hard time typing with it. For me, a GCSE grade D in English, it’s second nature.
And if there are a plethora of mistakes in this post my excuse is, I’m drunk.
“judgement” kills me every time I see it–(judgment)
Well I only spot one, isn’t it boss’s, or bosses’ but never boss’? Unless of course, the plural to boss, can be boss, then which I stand corrected.
Hey guys, I’m seriously sorry.
I wasn’t able to spell in kindergarten, and I can’t do it now. I’ve tried, but those alarm bells that go off when you see a word spelled wrong just don’t go off for me. To my mind even the most horrible mispellings I make look okay. Half the bad examples you guys bring up seem like likely ways to spell the words.
There are some words that I’m aware of being incapable of spelling (like those things that dressers have that you put clothes in, or those places you go out to eat at) and it’s to the point that I’ll use euphemisms or avoid writing about the subjects (you won’t find me telling you what my eating establishment is in IMHO, for example) because I know it’s just going to be a mess of trouble. The worst thing is, I read tons and I’m not bad with langauage (although I do have some trouble writing…my words get melded together and I write wierd letters sometimes…makes me wonder).
In order to spell right without a spell checker I’d basically have to sit there with a dictionary and double check each word. And the computer I have for use doesn’t have a word processor with a spell check, or room on the hard drive for one (there is an online one I run really important stuff through). I really (but not the other word for “really”, that starts with an “s” and you use to sign letter with, since I can’t spell that word) apologize to everyone that has ever read any of my written works. I promise you thats it’s not a situation I’m happy with.
I once had a boyfriend who could not spell “any”. He always wrote “eny”. A three letter word!
(I originally typed “three letter world”. Luckily, I caught that before submitting.)
Once, when I was in junior high, someone wrote on my binder when I wasn’t around. It read, “Hi rinni, from Noone.” For a long time I thought Noone was someone’s name, someone from another class who I hadn’t met but who had just decided to write on my binder. It took me a couple of weeks to figure out what they really meant.
:smack:
Some of my pet spelling peeves:
Definately, definatly, definitly, and whatnot. What’s weird is that most of the people I have confronted about this have known how to spell “definite”, so why the confusion when one more syllable is added?
Critisize. You can spell critic, can’t you? Please note that it is not spelled “critis”.
Comeing, haveing, takeing.
I have a friend who spells my personal favourite day of the week “Saterday”. Nice person, but gosh… it’s not like it’s an uncommon word!
A reporter friend of mine e-mailed me recently with a story she thought would peek my interest. sigh
There is no “a” in repellent.
Lightning strikes the ground. The hairdresser is lightening her hair.
Insure and ensure mean two different things, and it’s amazing to me how many professional publications confuse the two.
I once read a personal ad where the guy said he was a plummer.
And on the alright/all right debate: According to the Associated Press stylebook, alright is acceptable if you mean, “Alright then, let’s get on with it,” but you should use “all right” in this context: “They said it was all right to enter the house now.”
Actually, does anyone have an AP book so we can get it verbatim? I can’t remember it exactly…
My common mistake is “here” instead of “hear.” I KNOW the difference, and yet, it happens. Fingers going faster than my brain, I guess.
They have a deep and abiding subconscious desire for electroconvulsive therapy.
Groooooooaaaan!!!
What’s worse is that I’ve seen this in print. Yes, printed in ink on actual tree carcasses, not on the 'net. I can understand when a bunch of non-professionals who are writing in an informal way make mistakes. I can even understand it if those people don’t care too much that they’ve made mistakes. But what kind of a professional copy-edits that badly?
It’s beginning to bug me when people care enough to spell-check, but have no idea which word is the one they want to use. Words have meanings. Language is not a game of horseshoes. Sometimes, close is not close enough.
I have a sister who is quite intelligent, but a crappy speller. I’ve seen her spell “Chinese” four different ways, all of them wrong, in one letter to me. I’m pretty sure she has an undiagnosed learning disability. She is aware that she is a lousy speller and just tries to spell check everything.
As for me, (not “myself” as some people think) I find that my spelling skills get worse the longer I am out of school. A fairly recent development is that I find myself typing homonyms of the word I meant to use: “lude” instead of “lewd”, “there” when I know damn well the word I want is “their.” I think I am just losing my frickin’ mind.
I also keep making small mistakes that relate to this keyboard being slightly different from the one on which I learned to type, back in the dark ages.
I remember some of the typewriter keyboards I learned to type on. They had no numeral for “one” because the lowercase “L” was available. They had no numeral “zero” because uppercase “O” was just as handy. I don’t recall whether anyone ever yelled at us for not knowing a letter from a number, but at least we would have had an excuse.
Now that just about every font imaginable has distinct characters for its numerals and alphabetic characters, WHY are there so many people who still can’t tell them apart? And why haven’t the computer overlords smitten them with lightning yet?
I am a spelling and grammar Nazi. I preview e-mails, posts, etc. tons of times before I finally send or submit them because I want to make sure everything is spelled correctly, and nothing sounds stupid. Ya know? Just make sure everything ‘jives’.
The two errors I most commonly see (because I work in a bar/restaurant) are “hogie” and “karoke”. Ahem H-O-A-G-I-E & K-A-R-A-O-K-E.
I see a lot of others. Including:
Califlour / Cauliflower
Holloween / Halloween
loose / lose
peper / pepper
brockolie / broccoli
cheze / cheese
mazarela / mozzarella
stake / steak
potatos / potatoes (or potatoe instead of potato)
were / where
Ahh, shit. I’m too tired to list 'em all – and it hurts my brain. :smack:
If I see one more old Marine reminiscing about his days in the Corp, I’m gonna (electronically) go all R. Lee Ermey on his ass.
(The only trouble is that he probably would love it.)
I get heavily annoyed when people talk about “Sarah McLaughlin”. I’ve even seen it here on these boards lately. McLACHLAN. It’s not even pronounced the same!