I don’t think I’ve ever posted a grammar and spelling rant before, but it’s absolutely necessary right now.
To whom it may concern:
It is not ‘pasted’. It is PASSED.
It is not ‘losted’. It is LOST.
It is not ‘costed’. It is COST.
Fucking A, people, you’re making my goddamn eyes bleed out of their sockets! Please stop, unless you want me to go blind!
(And I’ve only noticed these things in the last month or two, but I’m noticing it more and more, and it’s driving me fucking crazy…).
Ava
There used to be a woman working in our fiscal department who was always asking for our help in getting things “paided”. At first I thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t.
And since we’re doing a grammar rant…I saw a display ad in the yellow pages today for a moving company that had a picture of the Venus de Milo captioned “If we would have moved her, she’d still have arms.” Grrrr!
Avabeth, you’re lucky you just started noticing this crap! I see it so much my eyes need maxipads!
What chaps my ass all out of proportion to the offense is people who use “hoard” when they mean “horde.”
It really shouldn’t bother me as much as it does.
I can’t stand seeing the word “unbareable” instead of “unbearable.” Drives me batshit.
And I also hate it when people who are supposed to be professional writers qualify things too much: “It’s exactly the same size!” “I am really quite hungry.” Yeah, that might be common usage in spoken language, but especially for non-fiction that doesn’t include dialogue, clean up your damn language.
Doesn’t it just? Why can’t some people just drowned theirself?
Ohhh I just thought of one that I’ve yet to contribute to any of the recent rants…
“Why come” instead of “Why” or “how come”
I hear this every so often and it makes my skin just crawl.
What’s wrong with that?
Heh–the main context in which I (a humane society worker) use either word is when I’m talking about animal hoarding. That’s when folks get the horrible idea to collect animals, sometimes dozens or hundreds of animals, usually kept in filthy and horrifying conditions. Thing is, they’re collecting hordes of animals, and it’s really difficult for me to remember how to spell the word when I’m describing it to someone.
I have no idea why anyone would object to “exactly the same size.” Things can be the same size, more or less, can’t they? I mean, all my pants are the same size, but I bet if you measured them, some of them have waistbands 1/4" wider than others.
And even though “Why come” is wrong, I think it’s really cute, for some reason.
Daniel
How about, “If we had moved her, she’d still have arms”?
They should have written, “If we had moved her, she’d still have arms.” This is the subjunctive mood, used for (among other things) statements contrary to fact.
My brother, a writer and college graduate (in English composition) still says “drowned” instead of “drown” as in “if I slip under the water, I’ll drowned” and adds ts where they don’t belong as in Jerry Steinfeld.
Drives me nucking futs.
It’s a minor nitpick of mine, and probably best used to describe something other than clothing (my fault for choosing that, though). It bothers me most when it’s used in marketing language. “Our software provides exactly the same functionality as the industry standard!” Few software companies would claim their products provide more or less the same or almost the same or sort of the same functionality as a competing software product because it reduces the impact of the language, so it seems silly for a company to claim to provide “exactly the same” thing.
I can understand that some businesses may feel that adding the word “exactly” might give the words more impact, but I think it’s overkill.
[calvin]
How many boards would the Mongols hoard, if the Mongol hordes got bored?
[/calvin]
Gak, you should see the letter that I recieved from my university (you know, those strongholds of knowlege, a shining light house surrounded by a sea of stupidity) the other day.
In it they had:
[ul]
[li]Spelt the PRESIDENT’S name wrong, either three times or once, I’m not sure now as to how the name is spelt[/li][li]A one sentance paragraph/run on sentance that should have been split into about three sentances[/li][li]Misplaced/absent commas galore[/li][li]poor syntax and style[/li][/ul]
“My God, that’s a lot of quarters!”, exclaimed the bank teller, pointing to the wheelbarrel full of change. “Young lady, did you hoard all of those quarters yourself?”
“Of course not!”, said the young lady. “My sister hoard half of them.”
We all received the following email today from the receptionist:
It just makes me want to weep. However, I am feeling quite free…
Except in the past tense, of course. 
tee hee hee - cackle, cackle. It looks as though you have borrowed my own TypoMonster today, CloudClever.
Never mind: would it amuse you to know that my university once managed to spell its own name wrong on the matric. cards that we would all be carrying as I.D. all year?
Then there are the people who get their cats “spaded”… :dubious:
wow, that’s worse than our receptionist, who recently sent:
On the sadder side, that’s the closest that anyone in this company has come to correct use of a reflexive pronoun.