Monday, January 4, 2010

While we’re at it

Over the last couple of days both the gentlemanly scholar known to his nearest and dearest as The Plashing Vole and the intellectually formidable (and still inexplicably single) Intelliwench have ranted about incorrect usage of the humble apostrophe. All well and good (and as I admitted sheepishly on the wench’s site, I have been known to get the fussy little bugger wrong on occasion) but I have a blunter (or should that be more blunt?) axe to grind.

Who’s heard or read something like these recently?

  • I would of made breakfast if I could of gotten out of bed
  • I should of known better that to of asked you

It’s one thing hearing these words come out of someone’s mouth but seeing it written down makes the offence so much more inexcusable. It’s the difference between careless and clueless.

Spending five minutes reading comments on YouTube affects me like fingernails dragged down a blackboard. I advocate the return of public flogging for such blatant crimes against grammar and don’t even get me started on the they’re/their/there issue.

Now before I sign off can I make one point clear? This post does not give anyone licence to henceforth critique the grammar in my posts. I’m not one of your students Vole - I’m a giver not a taker.

language_books

5 comments:

  1. Have? I try my best to write correctly. One of my pet peeves is when someone uses the wrong word for something. Just a bastardization of the word they are looking for. I bite my tongue though.

    I remember learning in school two, to and too.
    Their, their and they're.

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  2. I wouldn't dream of it - and I haven't noticed any egregious grammar crimes on your blog! I paarticularly hate 'would of' too.

    Are you suggesting that I'm 'explicably' single, given that you list Intelliwench as 'inexplicably single'?

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  3. Never Vole, it's just doesn't seem to be such an issue for you (or if it is, you don't blog about it). You're a catch and some girl will twig to that at some stage though of course she'll have to have a tolerance for excessive book buying and cheese consumption.

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  4. Lou, I cannot stand to read comments on YouTube either. The comments written there make me feel like my head will explode.

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