Experiences Spelling, grammar and punctuation pet peeves!

[Daisie]

Something very very petty and niche I see now and again...

"We offer 100s of movies!"

Ah. So you offer one-hundreds of movies? Darn, I was hoping for two-hundreds of movies. Maybe even three.

Seriously, if you want to indicate a large amount of movies/anything that is in the hundred-range, just type it out. We have hundreds of movies, not 100s.

I don't know if 100s is grammatically correct or not. I haven't fact-checked that or anything, but nonetheless, it's a peeve of mine since I always read it as "one-hundreds", without fail.

 

[Kisana]

This entire thread makes me think of the song Word Crimes, by Weird Al haha.

 

[contrast.]

Don't know if this has already been stated already but, here are a few of my pet peeves:
- When talking in past tense people tend to make mistakes like, "I should have went" instead of "I should have gone"
- When people think that spelling errors = grammar. People may say "watch your grammar" after correcting someone who spelled a word wrong.

 

[Crayons]

- When people think that spelling errors = grammar. People may say "watch your grammar" after correcting someone who spelled a word wrong.

It's a meta-peeve!

 

[Miniapollo17]

Surprised this wasn't mentioned yet:

"Would of", "Could of", etc.

I get that "would've" sounds like that, but the sentence makes no sense if you think about it so I don't know why it's so common.

 

[Wash]

Misplaced apostrophe's in plural object's. Why you gotta be so possessive, bruh?

 

[Fletchawk]

Capitalization. I can forgive text messages from the technologically inept, but if someone is typing on even a somewhat regular basis, and is neglecting something as basic as that when they have TWO shift keys...

​

 

[OTL]

I am done if I see "more then" instead of "more than".

Also:
Years ago I also had a rp partner who would consistently write "wonton" instead of "wanton" - in spite of me correcting her.

 

[Lorsh]

Seargent
Sargent
Sergent
Sargeant
Sergant
"Serjeant" gets a pass for 15th century lads

 

[Crayons]

I am done if I see "more then" instead of "more than".

Also:
Years ago I also had a rp partner who would consistently write "wonton" instead of "wanton" - in spite of me correcting her.

I had an RP partner that always spelled "pregnant" as "pregnate". Now when I think of it, it just reminds me of that YouTube video. "Pregeganat?!"

I didn't correct her because it didn't seem like a big deal at the time. XD

 

[ExtraExtra]

Not sure if this counts as a spelling error since it's intentional but written-out stammers. Need I say more?

 

[PopcornPie]

Its-This is the possessive. Its wings, its hide, its claws.
It's-It is

It's not as cringe inducing for me as there/they're/their, but it still bugs me when I see them mixed up.

 

[Crayons]

Its-This is the possessive. Its wings, its hide, its claws.
It's-It is

It's not as cringe inducing for me as there/they're/their, but it still bugs me when I see them mixed up.

I mess this up a lot, even though I know, intellectually, what is correct. I end up putting an apostrophe in possessive "its". Sometimes I notice it and go back to fix it, but other times I just don't notice until it's too late. XD

 

[Soot]

Could of/ would of. I feel like this is a mistake so commonly addressed that it should be going away, but sadly, it remains. Not so much a pet peeve as curiosity about whether the author has come across that in normal literature before ...

 

[Crayons]

Could of/ would of. I feel like this is a mistake so commonly addressed that it should be going away, but sadly, it remains. Not so much a pet peeve as curiosity about whether the author has come across that in normal literature before ...

I think a lot of people don't read that much. I come across a lot of um... interesting spellings of common words in rp because they are homonyms. For ex. "It donned on him". That indicates to me that the player doesn't do much reading cos if they did they'd come across these words written down before and not have to guess the spelling.

 

[Ayama]

Can't remember if this one's been mentioned or not, but consistency in use of tenses throughout posts.
I will admit even I am sometimes guilty of this in the writing process (though it gets ironed out when I re-read it, of course).
Still, it bugs me when the tenses don't stay consistent -.-​

 

[Shawn Michael]

One term that really annoys me is "free gift"

A gift, by definition, is free.

 

[readfoxes]

Inconsistent tenses.

I see roleplayers do this all the time, and I think it may come from using different tenses for different partners... but it drives me absolutely crazy when a post switches tenses halfway through.

"Sally stood up from her chair and walked to the refrigerator. She rubs her chin and considers whether she wants to cook or go grab junk food."

Edit: Saw Ayama's post seconds after posting this, ahaha. I'm not alone in this at least.

 

[just_patches]

Its-This is the possessive. Its wings, its hide, its claws.
It's-It is

It's not as cringe inducing for me as there/they're/their, but it still bugs me when I see them mixed up.

I mess up with this one from time to time.

 

[Crayons]

Inconsistent tenses.

I see roleplayers do this all the time, and I think it may come from using different tenses for different partners... but it drives me absolutely crazy when a post switches tenses halfway through.

"Sally stood up from her chair and walked to the refrigerator. She rubs her chin and considers whether she wants to cook or go grab junk food."

Edit: Saw Ayama's post seconds after posting this, ahaha. I'm not alone in this at least.

I'm listening to the audiobook of Jane Eyre and the author does this. XD I have to say I find it mildly grating. She tends to only use present tense for scene setting and then slip into past, so at least there's some kind of method to it.

 

[double-double]

None of this brothers me. I type how I talk. Weather it's 'right or wrong,' your / you're sounds the same when you say it. I'm not a idiot. I can read the context of the sentence and know which your/you're they are using. Having three spellings for one word is stupid. (To me.)

 

[Grey]

Policing use of English is basically soft imperialism, so as long as your text communicates meaning sufficiently we're good. I hold myself to a certain standard, but that's a matter of personal aesthetics.
I keep the majority of my peeves tucked under my simmering outrage, just beside the hopelessness, but there is one that drives me up the wall.

The correct conjugation of to lie, as in to become supine. I just grit my teeth and move on.

Thesaurus abuse isn't really a peeve, so much as I seem psychologically incapable of taking someone's opinions seriously if they use uncommon words while clearly failing to grasp their nuance. It's fine if English is your second language, sometimes a word is just the nearest translation, and it actually bothers me way less if someone uses a term entirely incorrectly because they've mistakenly picked up the wrong definition (particularly if they've inferred it from context cues in the past), but when their use is just that little bit off...
I can't even think of an example but I have no doubt one of the jesters here will respond with a pinpoint accurate demonstration.

 

[Crayons]

Necroing this thread because I find it funny when people confuse "martial" and "marital" XD

A master of marital arts is very different to a master of martial arts.

 

[Grey]

A master of marital arts

Just tag me next time.

 

[Andei]

'I couldn't care less' vs 'I could care less'.

The first makes sense. The second is just plumbing the depths of an endless abyss. Saying you can care less tells me literally nothing of value - it says nothing about how much you actually care, just that whatever the degree of care you hold right now, you have the capacity to have less care than how much you currently care