Related to that, and with equal result to me, is the seemingly opposite meanings that when and whenever are gaining. “Whenever I was 17, I used to just walk home straight from school” and “When I get to a yellow light I speed up” illustrate this decently enough, I think, though the (criminally, to this pedant) egregious use of whenever really gets on my nerves.
Also, -age on a word. I’m aware that it’s becoming increasingly common to the point where it will soon be accepted by most folks, and that language changes, often to accomodate those who don’t know better. However, could we please eliminate the -age in usage, percentage and other words perfectly legitimate (have to add that final -e on to usage after removing the -age) without it? Use. Percent. Words - verbiage doesn’t make you look smart, it makes you look like you sat at a dictionary a minute ago to try and sound smart. Lineage, far as I know, doesn’t commit this heinous transgression, and mercifully my mental list of other such words is at its end for now.
Quote vs. quotation vs. quotation mark and cite vs. citation vs. site vs. sight (and cyte, I guess, though the folks who make the previously-mentioned mistakes usually don’t know cyte to misuse it). Oy. The AP Style Guide Common Mistakes sheet I got from the campus newspaper, and soon after edited so it wasn’t error-riddled, made mistakes with quote/quotation/mark at least three times.
Also (and I got email about this from a friend who was confused about all the stupids doing this), ending sentences with the wrong punctuation mark. Questions ended with exclamation marks (or periods), regular sentences ended with qmarks or exclamation marks (we went to the store! And bought a loaf of bread! With cheese grated on top!), especially if they’re actually sentence fragments.
Beginning a sentence (not a question but an affirmative sentence) with and, or, however, so, which, that, who, … all becoming increasingly accepted. In these cases are where I often make the vast bulk of my use errors.
Abusing apostrophes and commas gets on my fucking nerves. If I had a never-ending bottle of white-out, the fumes would never fully dissipate.
People who can’t sustain/match verb tenses. Reading fanfic aggravates this annoyance, but I’ve seen it enough otherwise. I’d love to find out how people go from “I went to the store and bought a loaf of bread” to “…buy a loaf of bread” who are native speakers of the language and do not have any diagnosed difficulty forming correct sentences, in writing or otherwise.
The “myself” problem, which seems to be a mark of faux intelligence, is up to now only minorly aggravating, but look for that to increase. A guy with whom I’ll be working uses that word in place of “me” with such distressing regularity that I wonder if it isn’t becoming “accepted” much as infer and imply have gradually become listed synonyms of each other.
I won’t even discuss lie vs. lay or sit vs. set, go vs. come, bring vs. take, in vs. into, on vs. onto, anymore vs. any more, who vs. whoever, forward (NO S!) and backward (NO S!) and beside (NO S!). Former roommate would frequently say “…but that’s besides the point.” He also claimed to be highly educated especially in English grammar. Bugged me the fuck out every time he said it.
The really sad thing is that there are plenty of other things we haven’t mentioned yet.
…why yes, I am a pedant. Whatever gave you that impression?
for sale.