These simple grammar and design mistakes bother us. What annoys you?

Until recently, I worked as an editor (engineering, science), and I'm the shiny happy person with a t-shirt that says, "Silently correcting your grammar" (in my defense, it was a gift), so this is an entertaining thread.

The grammar, usage, and punctuation errors are fun. ;-)

All you folks who hate how meaning and usage drift are prescriptivists: you want a rules-based linguistic world where E36 M3 never changes. Problem is, while you're railing against words being "misused" a certain way, you're using words with meaning/spelling that has also drifted. Language evolves.

Language is always evolving. If you're down with that, then you're a descriptivist: you believe that language is more about how it's actually used. I personally don't like how--according to a prescriptivist--"regards" is frequently used incorrectly when someone's talking about something, e.g., "With regards to your Yugo..." Regards are what you give to Broadway, or grandma and grandpa before hanging up with your Aunt Susie. It's "With regard to your Yugo..." But it's such a common "error" that I think it'll likely become "correct" in the future.

If you want to give more of a rip about writing/grammar/usage/punctuation, skip Strunk and White, and, especially, skip Eats, Shoots, and Leaves." This is GRM, so do it on the cheap: buy a used, past edition of Style: Ten Lessons in Style and Grace for $5 and any past edition of the Chicago Manual of Style with the grammar and usage chapter written by Bryan Garner (15th edition, at least, and maybe prior editions, too). You're buying the book just for this chapter, not because you want to become a full-on word dork. Garner is arguably the foremost authority on the topic.

(Full-on word dorks should own Garner's Modern English Usage, because it's awesome and it's funny.)

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@Sarah: I have a pet peeve about GRM's style guide: there is no space on either side of the en dashes GRM uses instead of em dashes to indicate pauses, to explain something, etc. The en dash is so short that it looks like a hyphen. I have no idea what AP says about it, but Chicago says that an en dash is "to connect numbers," e.g., 2000-2023, "and, less often, words" (and goes on to note a couple edge cases). Meanwhile, an em dash is for "amplifying or explaining," "separating subject from pronoun," or "indicating sudden breaks." Em dashes shouldn't be preceded or followed by spaces.

TL;DR  Use em dashes, not en dashes.

There are so many things that I want to reply to here!

First, I think "hanged" is used instead of "hung" because people decided that the proper meaning of "hung" was the "like a horse" variety. 
 

Second, I read somewhere or was told that modern variable font types have made the double space after a period superfluous; with the old, standard, pica spacing, where all the letters take up the same amount of space no matter how they're shaped, the double space *does* make more sense. That said, I will always hit the space bar twice, but my phone takes that to mean, "period, and one space."

I literally programmed the text replacement in my phone to automatically use "‘til". 
 

I am quite annoyed by the use of a plural pronoun by  those individuals that can't decide on one. There is a gender-neutral singular pronoun, but people seem to not like the detachment of "it."

I was raised in, and live in, a fairly redneck area. My parents weren't "from around here," and it was illegal in my house to use much of the local vernacular. This made many of the people around me think that I thought I "was better than them" or "talked down to them."  I have, over the course of my life, changed my way of expressing myself. I haven't gone full-"seen/throwed," but I have loosened up quite a bit. Now that I actually *do* talk down to people, they seem to like it more. 
 

Also, there is no freaking Foxbody Mustang!  The Mustang was on the Fox Chassis or the Fox Platform! It shared no other body parts with any of the other Fox Platform cars, except for the Capri, and then only a few.  Just because GM and MOPAR had letter body codes does *not* mean Ford did. 

RacerBoy75 said:

The "breaks" instead of "brakes" thing drives me nuts, and it is inexcusable.

Being a tire guy...mine is "thread depth"

If the cord is showing, no need to measure.

Since malapropisms are within the context of this thread, the biggest, shiny happy person I ever worked for used to tell me that he had "pacifically" told me to do something.
 

Usually he hadn't, but that's another story. 

I lived in my wife's hometown and western North Carolina for a year.
 

I don't think anyone ever got the joke when I said I was "fixin to get ready" to do something.

Fixin to: translates to "I am preparing to" do this thing.

I hear people say "Ambalants" or "Amulents" when I'm at work, and it makes me chafe.

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to RacerBoy75 :

That is cringeworthy.  It also reminds me that people ain't gettin' smarter.

Smart has little to do with it.  I have known some very intelligent people for whom their first language was bad English, or otherwise couldn't be bothered as long as their point was getting across.

Given that the purpose of language is communication, maybe they aren't wrong. 

I wish the word "Rad" would go away, in both its California and Canadian forms.

In reply to Toyman! :

Amber lamps? That would be a tow truck, which I suppose you might need if your carriage were leaking. 

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

I wish the word "Rad" would go away, in both its California and Canadian forms.

There's a Canadian form of "rad"?  Also I kind of like the word if used sparingly.

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

I wish the word "Rad" would go away, in both its California and Canadian forms.

You don't like radiators?  Asking as a Canadian.

procainestart said:

TL;DR  Use em dashes, not en dashes.

We decided that em-dashes were too long, but I hear you. We may revisit that.

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

Amberlamps is an old reference to a viral video from 15 years ago. An old guy beat down a young punk who wouldn't stay out of his face. 

Whoops, it's age restricted. Here's a link. https://youtu.be/53Bx5PLrOIk?t=164 instead of an embed. 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to RacerBoy75 :

That is cringeworthy.  It also reminds me that people ain't gettin' smarter.

Smart has little to do with it.  I have known some very intelligent people for whom their first language was bad English, or otherwise couldn't be bothered as long as their point was getting across.

 

Given that the purpose of language is communication, maybe they aren't wrong. 

Maybe they aren't right . If your grammar, punctuation and word usage is poor, people may miss the point entirely. That would be poor communication.

I remember a time when people didn't make excuses for poor linguistic skills.  My English teacher was quite hard on me and rightfully so.  She would be appalled at what passes for journalism, writing, and speech today.  

My personal favorite is "your (adjective)."  Sweet, now I own whatever adjective was chosen.  
 

I'm going to stick by my statement people ain't gettin' smarter.  I've posted the literacy rates here before.  

It's actually interesting that the current view on most issues to complain about them, but then dismiss it so no one ever has to fix anything.  Education is failing in front of our faces, but I guess that's okay.  It's a societal issue that would require a collective effort, but clearly apathy wins.  

In reply to procainestart :

I am not familiar with the EM or EN dash, so I don't really understand.

That's good, I love learning new things.

Sarah Young said:

procainestart said:

TL;DR  Use em dashes, not en dashes.

We decided that em-dashes were too long, but I hear you. We may revisit that.

Please do, because as a reader of the print magazine, I've thought exactly the same thing.

[edit]  I corrected this post to fix a typo.

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

This is what happens when you teach to the lowest common denominator instead of letting the smart kids excel and the not-so-smart fall behind. 

So here's some fun:

Some of you may have seen the Stewart documentary last week. He admitted he couldn't read or write and was only diagnosed with severe dyslexia at age 41 yet....................yet he manged to be highly successful in the business world

Same goes for Bernie Ecclestone; left school at 16 and was already wheeling and dealing.  I don't recall anyone saying Bernie was artful in his speaking.

The issue here is the percentage of people on this forum lean towards being pedantic. What matters to us probably doesn't matter in the everyday world.

Are their stylistic thngs and certain bits of grammar, or lack there of,  that bug me? Yes, but I don't judge people to be less skilled or intelligent based on that............that's a great way to get blindsided in business.

As for the GRM staff I get why it matters to them; they are trying to maintain a certain level of quality.

I'm revisiting something I said earlier about singular "they" pronouns...

That's why I love my son's girlfriend. She gives me grace when I make a mistake
 

I guess I should have used "they" as a singular pronoun:

"That's why I love my son's girlfriend.  They give me grace when I make a mistake". But I don't think it would have been clear if I was referring to the girlfriend, or BOTH my son and his girlfriend.  (the answer is the former)

... or maybe "They gives me grace when I make a mistake".  You know... since "gives" is the proper singular conjugation of the word "give".  (Of course, then people would just think I was stupid)
 

Nope. It's not clear or simple. There are no good answers. 

Maybe this has already been beaten to death but this seems like more a place to vent than a place to study. I live near the Philly region, and went to school in South Jersey. The Delco accent has always made me laugh, except for one thing. Youse. As in, "'ey, youse guys wanna go grab a hoagie at Wawa? Grab me a wooder while you're there." 

Streetwiseguy said:

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

I wish the word "Rad" would go away, in both its California and Canadian forms.

You don't like radiators?  Asking as a Canadian.

I love radiators. And I love The Radiators. But I don't like when nos amis du nord "replace the rad."

In reply to Tom1200 :

So, proper grammar only matters to people who are pedantic, but the GRM staff is maintaining "quality " when they do it?

That's circular reasoning. You are saying there is a standard which defines "quality " (which implies that failure to do so would be "poor quality "), while also asserting that it doesn't matter. 

In reply to SV reX :

I think what he is suggesting is there are times when grammar is important, like writing a magazine or a book. Other times it is less so, like writing a forum post. 

I would agree with him. 

One of my former jobs included the responsibility for hiring. I usually had to review about 400 resumes per month. 
 

It made no difference what job someone was applying for. Poor grammar was a fast track to the discard pile, regardless of their skills or experience. 
 

We didn't care how people talked or how educated they were. We cared that at times they needed to represent the company, and we wanted to know they could do it well (when they had to).  
 

We usually had more than 100 applicants for every job opening. We didn't really need to consider anyone who didn't know how to act professionally when it mattered. 
 

It's important.