Welcome to this week’s blog hop. Today the topic is:
‘What are your pet peeves regarding grammar and spelling?’
I’ve listed my main peeves below. I inwardly scream when I see these howlers in books that I’m given to review:
- An inability to differentiate between their, they’re and there.
- Using ‘should of‘ instead of ‘should have‘.
- Using ‘would of‘ instead of ‘would have‘.
- Confusing bought with brought.
- An inability to differentiate between your and you’re.
- Using capital letters inappropriately.
- Not using speech marks, or just mixing speech up with the rest of the sentence.
- Not using any commas.
- Missing apostrophes, especially the possessive apostrophe. I think this one is my worst peeve!
- Putting in an apostrophe when one should not be there. This is my second worst peeve!
- One big block of writing instead of several paragraphs.
- An inability to differentiate between practice (a noun, such as a GP practice) and practise (a verb, such as to practise the violin ).
- Mixing up of tenses.
Let’s see what other blog-hoppers’ pet peeves are. Please click on the blue button below to find out…
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Stevie Turner 
Good list! A lot of those bother me, as well.
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With you all the way Sistah! May I add my peeviest of peeves – head hopping. 🙂 x
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Oh yes.
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Reblogged this on aurorawatcherak.
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I sometimes stumble over the differences in British and American grammar, but usually only in the first chapter of the book. It’s not the fault of the writer. I just need to adjust my speech comprehension. I usually stop noticing after a little bit of reading.
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And in some counties, they use single quotes for dialogue ‘…’ and in the US we use double quotes. “…”
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I once submitted a manuscript to a UK publisher. I’d used double quotation marks and I was told to use single. Single ones do not seem right to me.
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I also hate people changing tense, especially in the same paragraph.
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It makes me tense, too!
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‘You was,’ instead of ‘you were.’ Singular subject with the plural version of the verb, and vice versa. Inability to recognise a collective noun.
And I’m still waiting for my Noble Prize 😉
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Y’all was ‘bout to get a ass whoopin’ (singular) y’all were ‘bout to get a ass whoopin’ (plural) I was ‘bout to kick y’all’s ass. I were ‘bout to kick y’all’s asses? Oops.
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iPads. Arrrr. The point is was were, is that was and were are generally passive, but we’re back to that dialogue thing. There was one – dialog and dialogue. Pick one. Anyway, a sentence with was or were needs a rewrite unless there’s no other way.
Jim kicked Bill.
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It was the fact that if Jim were to kick Bill, Bill would whup his ass.
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Colloquial. But, direct if/then, without then- Jim kicks Bill he’ll get his ass whupped. Also depends on who’s talking, the person of few words or the “talker.” I’m sure PJ knows those people. As far as the excessive Louisiana/“Suthrin” patois in some of those books…egads. I think James Lee Burke is a closet racist because only his black characters talk like coonasses and anybody who’s spent time “down bayou” knows you can’t understand nobody, even Bobby n em.
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Ah, I’m not the only one then. I’m currently typing transcripts for QA World, and the conversations all seem to be from the Deep South. I’ve heard lots of accents in my time, but these ones beat ’em all…
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Ah jes’ bin readin’ ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’, an’ it ain’t whoopin’. Y’all got it ass uppards. Ah mean, yo gonna get yo ass whupped, or sump’n.
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Yes, a little over the top. I’m still impressed by how Mark Twain imparted all that with phrasing over a hundred years ago and people are still chasing the naturalness of it. I worked for a company out of Meridian, Mississippi and there’s something in there beyond phonetics, even in the “well spoken”. Ohhh Lawsy.
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There is indeed. I wish I could understand what it might be…
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It’s the extra invented or present and pronounced vowels, plus the roundness of sound like talking with a mouth full of marbles and listeneing with a head full of snot. Try this next time you have a mouthful of potatoes… “I sway-er he wuz the onree-ust kee-ud ever tuh dee-stroy, an I’m tellin’ ya now, deee stroy a pair uh dye pers.”
I spent years on the phone – “Kee-un? It’s Pheeul. Line four. I kay-unt tell hee um thay ut, Kee-un, he knows yer hee ur. Where’s he ay-ut? Lemme see… Pheeul, where you ay at? Nawlins? Kee unn says cay-un hee call y’all bayuck? Oh mah lord, Pheeul! Ah cay-ant tell him THAY-UT!
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Lol! Yew kerack me up. I just tried to type another one and couldn’t even understand the name of the company to start with.
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Okay here’s where real suthrinisms come up. Bobby and his cousins, Bobby and the team…even the name of a store Safeway. They roll it out with “an em.” a contracted version of and them. Bobbyanem, Safewaysanem, Searsanem. The company could be Smiths but they’ll mutter Smiffsanem. This guy from California married a gal from Ba-tawn Rouge, she said, “my brothernem” and he thought everyone she knew’s name was nem. Sissyanem. Mothernem, Bubbanem. He figured it out before he met allnem. Hey Brother Nem, Momma Nem…oh well…
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Phee-el! I wonder if Eminem came from that way?
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Oooh, you are a hard task master, Stevie. Smile!
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Comes from having to write many lines at school regarding spelling or grammatical mistakes. I had good teachers in the 1960s, and it paid off.
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That’s a stylistic issue. Post modernists even insert themselves. It drives me nuts, but in 3rd Omni the point is being able to get around as far as perspective. Which is why I avoid too much head time. Particularly the redundant kind where after a conversation or action takes place and character x had to take a walk and rehash or moralize.
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This belonged under Darlene’s comment. Oh well…
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I agree with all of these, as well as multiple points of view. One point of view per scene, please. In fact, I prefer one POV per chapter, or book. I´ve had to stop reading a book when there has been too much head-hopping.
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Yes. but I think when we start out writing it can be an easy mistake to make.
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Of course!
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When I was teaching, the most common grammar error that I saw in parent letters was the words “a lot” written as “alot.”
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Yes, that’s a frequent mistake, Pete.
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Practice and practise is a Brit thing. Over here practice is it, either way, leading to many over used jokes about I don’t really want want a practicing surgeon, I want one who has it figured out. Or lawyer. Or shrink or…
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Ah, I see. I remember the practise/practise thing being drummed into me at school. Didn’t realise it’s not that way in the US.
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And there hangs one of the problems – things that bug us Brits are the right way to do it in the USA and vice versa. One useage that annoyed me a lot when I regularly saw it in reports, memos and emails at work was “been” for “being”.
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Add bean. And it’s a phonetic thing. Where been is ben it isn’t an issue, but where been is bean is being, then you get issues!
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Oh yes, good one.
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