English language peeve

[mntetn]

I hate it when people who should know better, make this mistake:

Each year ITE holds a call for abstracts for the following year’s Technical Conference and Exhibit and Annual Meeting and Exhibit. The submitted abstracts are subject to a membership peer review prior to being used by the Technical Program Committee to develop the program. ... Each reviewer will have one week to review a maximum of 30 250-word abstracts. These individuals will compliment the representatives from the councils and San Antonio who will serve as reviewers.

So, I would have to read 30 pages, then tell all the reviewers how great they are?

[ulysses5019]

I hate it when people who should know better, make this mistake:

Each year ITE holds a call for abstracts for the following year’s Technical Conference and Exhibit and Annual Meeting and Exhibit. The submitted abstracts are subject to a membership peer review prior to being used by the Technical Program Committee to develop the program. ... Each reviewer will have one week to review a maximum of 30 250-word abstracts. These individuals will compliment the representatives from the councils and San Antonio who will serve as reviewers.

So, I would have to read 30 pages, then tell all the reviewers how great they are?

So, is peevisity the new gratuity?

[gsabc]

I hate it when people who should know better, make this mistake:

Each year ITE holds a call for abstracts for the following year’s Technical Conference and Exhibit and Annual Meeting and Exhibit. The submitted abstracts are subject to a membership peer review prior to being used by the Technical Program Committee to develop the program. ... Each reviewer will have one week to review a maximum of 30 250-word abstracts. These individuals will compliment the representatives from the councils and San Antonio who will serve as reviewers.

So, I would have to read 30 pages, then tell all the reviewers how great they are?

First the proofreaders, THEN the reviewers! One of my peeves as well. I turn off when a presenter's slides contain typos or grammatical errors. Worst example was a presentation by a well-known QA professional which had an obvious typo in a PowerPoint slide. He had made the same presentation at various conferences around the country. The slide was dated from when he created it - nearly two years before the presentation I attended. The Quality professional can't go back and correct the mistake??

Too much reliance on spell-checkers and calculators nowadays, so no one can spell, write with correct grammar or do simple math.

Edited to note that it was a PowerPoint slide, and easy to correct.

[Here's Fanny!]

My Top Three Grammatical Pet Peeves:

1. it's/its
2. complement/compliment
3. loose/lose


GPP HoF:

Definately


Top All Time Pet Peeve:

The term "pet peeve"

[littlebeast13]

My Top Three Grammatical Pet Peeves:

1. it's/its
2. complement/compliment
3. loose/lose


GPP HoF:

Definately


Top All Time Pet Peeve:

The term "pet peeve"

Hopefully Bob Barker's efforts are helping to control the pet peeve population....

lb13

[SportsFan68]

I have mine too, especially when I see them from folkses who should know better.

The first non-work website I ever looked in on, I was invited by a co-worker to his home-brew site. He really did a good job explaining how to home-brew beer, but I was appalled by all the typos and misspellings and offered to help him correct them. He thanked me but said that as I looked around a bit more, I would discover that his site was the norm, not the exception, so would leave it as was.

I complimented this bored a long while back on its generally high-quality grammar, spelling, and usage and still feel the same. Sometimes it's a relief to look in here. Then I read something I disagree with . . .

[macrae1234]

While my punctuation and grammer may slip on occasion my peeve is people who when speaking use an adjective to modify a verb.
We did good seems to be a common one.

[NellyLunatic1980]

Another one of my pet peeves besides it's/its is when people write "the 1990's" or "the 90's". It should be "the 1990s" and "the '90s".

[ShitSandwich]

Another one of my pet peeves besides it's/its is when people write "the 1990's" or "the 90's". It should be "the 1990s" and "the '90s".

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people cross out vulgar words....

[NellyLunatic1980]

Another one of my pet peeves besides it's/its is when people write "the 1990's" or "the 90's". It should be "the 1990s" and "the '90s".

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people cross out vulgar words....

He's talking about you, Otto Ashcroft!

[silvercamaro]

i wont call it a peeve i will call it a befuddlement when otherwise seemingly educated people write long passages without considering the possibility of using capital letters or punctuation of any kind i never know if they dont know the difference or if they simply cant be bothered to try to communicate in standard english

[gsabc]

Another one of my pet peeves besides it's/its is when people write "the 1990's" or "the 90's". It should be "the 1990s" and "the '90s".

I have learned something today. My memory says I was taught to separate the number from the "s" by using the apostrophe. That is not the current usage. I don't know if I was misremembering or if usage has changed since my grammar education days. Is it the same if it's a number rather than a date? Examples:"The temperature is expected to be in the 90s/90's." or "He's in his 80s/80's."

[tanstaafl2]

i wont call it a peeve i will call it a befuddlement when otherwise seemingly educated people write long passages without considering the possibility of using capital letters or punctuation of any kind i never know if they dont know the difference or if they simply cant be bothered to try to communicate in standard english

I take it you aren't a huge fan of e e cummings then...

[Rexer25]

Ya know, 1 thing I can't stand is people who shout all the time.

Like on TV last night, there was this guy selling something called the Awesome Auger, and if you bought now, they threw in the drill for free!

[NellyLunatic1980]

Is it the same if it's a number rather than a date? Examples:"The temperature is expected to be in the 90s/90's." or "He's in his 80s/80's."

Yes, it's the same. Since the numbers don't possess anything, you can't use a possessive apostrophe-S. Nor can you use apostrophe-S as in a notation of the word "is" or "has". It has to be a plural S. Temperatures are in the 90s (nineties, not ninetie's or ninetie is) and people are in their 80s.

[TheCalvinator24]

Is it the same if it's a number rather than a date? Examples:"The temperature is expected to be in the 90s/90's." or "He's in his 80s/80's."

Yes, it's the same. Since the numbers don't possess anything, you can't use a possessive apostrophe-S. Nor can you use apostrophe-S as in a notation of the word "is" or "has". It has to be a plural S. Temperatures are in the 90s (nineties, not ninetie's or ninetie is) and people are in their 80s.

Ah, but The temperature is in the 90s, and he is in his 80s.

I, too, remember being taught to use an apostrophe when pluralizing numbers. I believe it was considered to be more aesthetic, despite the fact that it was syntactically incorrect.

[ulysses5019]

Should my avatars consider using spellcheck?

[SportsFan68]

Should my avatars consider using spellcheck?

Yes.

[littlebeast13]

Is it the same if it's a number rather than a date? Examples:"The temperature is expected to be in the 90s/90's." or "He's in his 80s/80's."

Yes, it's the same. Since the numbers don't possess anything, you can't use a possessive apostrophe-S. Nor can you use apostrophe-S as in a notation of the word "is" or "has". It has to be a plural S. Temperatures are in the 90s (nineties, not ninetie's or ninetie is) and people are in their 80s.

Ah, but The temperature is in the 90s, and he is in his 80s.

I, too, remember being taught to use an apostrophe when pluralizing numbers. I believe it was considered to be more aesthetic, despite the fact that it was syntactically incorrect.

Incorrect usage or not, I think it looks better to add the apostrophe to the S in the cases you mentioned such as 80's and 90's. I do the same thing for abbreviations like RBI's (And don't get me started on how much it pisses me off when I see the plural of RBI's written as just plain RBI, and that may very well be correct usage too, but it just doesn't look right).

I'm all for using correct grammar and such when applicable, but just like when people use the word ain't, there are times when the wrong word/syntax/grammar just looks and sounds better than the correct way.... and I would imagine it's chages like this that have caused language to evolve over the centuries in the first place....

lb13

[silvercamaro]

I take it you aren't a huge fan of e e cummings then...

Actually, I do like ee cummings, who used or ignored capital letters and punctuation for special purposes and wrote with rhythm and an internal structure. That's why it's poetry. Writing any number of dull words in a row does not qualify for that designation. Brief example from cummings for demonstration purposes:

who knows if the moon's a balloon,
coming out of a keen city in the sky--
filled with pretty people? (and if you and i
should get into it, if they should take me
and take you into their balloon, why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,
where always it's Spring) and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

[andrewjackson]

Not to the level of a peeve but what happened to the last comma in a list?

Is this now correct? For lunch I ate a hamburger, a cheeseburger and a hot dog.

I could have sworn I was taught that it should be: For lunch I ate a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a hot dog.

I see many people doing it the first way now and not the second. It just looks wrong to me every time. Why wouldn't there be a comma before the "and" the last item?

[Rexer25]

Not to the level of a peeve but what happened to the last comma in a list?

Is this now correct? For lunch I ate a hamburger, a cheeseburger and a hot dog.

I could have sworn I was taught that it should be: For lunch I ate a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a hot dog.

I see many people doing it the first way now and not the second. It just looks wrong to me every time. Why wouldn't there be a comma before the "and" the last item?

I was taught that the last comma is optional, and chose not to use it. I was not aware I had affected the writing community to such an extent.

[andrewjackson]

Not to the level of a peeve but what happened to the last comma in a list?

Is this now correct? For lunch I ate a hamburger, a cheeseburger and a hot dog.

I could have sworn I was taught that it should be: For lunch I ate a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a hot dog.

I see many people doing it the first way now and not the second. It just looks wrong to me every time. Why wouldn't there be a comma before the "and" the last item?

I was taught that the last comma is optional, and chose not to use it. I was not aware I had affected the writing community to such an extent.

So that covers you in the past. What do you do now?

[Rexer25]

Not to the level of a peeve but what happened to the last comma in a list?

Is this now correct? For lunch I ate a hamburger, a cheeseburger and a hot dog.

I could have sworn I was taught that it should be: For lunch I ate a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a hot dog.

I see many people doing it the first way now and not the second. It just looks wrong to me every time. Why wouldn't there be a comma before the "and" the last item?

I was taught that the last comma is optional, and chose not to use it. I was not aware I had affected the writing community to such an extent.

So that covers you in the past. What do you do now?

I leave it out.

[Bob Juch]

Not to the level of a peeve but what happened to the last comma in a list?

Is this now correct? For lunch I ate a hamburger, a cheeseburger and a hot dog.

I could have sworn I was taught that it should be: For lunch I ate a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a hot dog.

I see many people doing it the first way now and not the second. It just looks wrong to me every time. Why wouldn't there be a comma before the "and" the last item?

I was taught that the last comma is optional, and chose not to use it. I was not aware I had affected the writing community to such an extent.

See the book "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation". Just the title should tell you that the comma is necessary at times.