copycat
everyone who knows me knows that i'm kind of a grammar freak (i was the "grammar police" 2 years ago for halloween...dovie was jealous that she didn't think of it first). however, because mike has an entire blog dedicated to grammar patrol, i have never posted on the subject, even though it is a huge pet peeve of mine. reading his blog (and the link) and commenting on it made me want to write my own, so here goes the copycat...
i have several HUGE pet peeves (and teaching 6th grade english, i was peeved quite a bit). here are a few:
- ya'll - what is this??? this is not a word! people from texas, this is a word we can call our own; for the love, punctuate it correctly: y'all. the word is a contraction for "you all"; it is NOT a contraction for a word containing the verb "will", as in "we'll" or "you'll". (this is the only explanation i can come up with for why people do this.)
- "then" in place of "than" - again, what is this? it seems to me that this is a very simple thing that we SHOULD HAVE (as opposed to should of) all learned in elementary school. "then" is an adverb and tells when something happens (notice there's only one letter that is different in the words then and when). "than" is a comparatve word: this is bigger THAN that is.
- when people use adjectives in place of adverbs: i got dressed quick. it should be "i got dressed quickLY."
- alot - okay, this is especially annoying b/c it's so common. question: would you say "i have abunch of friends" or "i have a bunch of friends"? that's easy (i would think), so why in the world do we want to say "alot"? it should be two words: a lot
- could care less - hmm, well if you could care less, then you're not making much of a point. correct usage: couldn't care less
posted by paige @ 7:10 PM
4 Comments:
Y'all back in Texas have no idea how hard it is for a badge-carrying member of the American Grammar Patrol to walk with her head held high in the Queen's England! It's much harder than one might think. Then again, I should have known that the "language barrier" involved more than vocabulary. However, I think that I have adjusted rather quickly to speaking "proper English", but I'm quite sure a lot of my speech is actually a melange of American and British English, and I'd like to say that I couldn't care less, but the fact is that I could. It actually troubles me, because I think I'm going to be JACKED UP for life, and am going to have to TRUN IN MY BADGE.
Poor Dovie. Mind your Ps and Qs whilst in merry old England. But don't mistake the English they use as being "proper" over ours, because the usage of "proper" in the British sense is "real, genuine," which would imply that American English is not genuine. And I know that you know better than that.
Kudos for #5! I cringe when I hear someone say that he could care less. I usually want to respond: "no you couldn't!" The problem is that it is true- they really couldn't care less.
I remember telling you that I hated it when...Second Graders told me that "I'm done." (with their work instead of "I'm finished."
Love, Erin Kelly Furby, a really really old friend from The Big Easy
Erin!! so good to hear from you!
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