English Pet Peeves, or the Recovering Grammar Nazi Support Group #2

Sup bros.


I was fixin'a bump the previous thread, but having realized that it had accumulated upward of a thousand posts, I took it upon myself to start a sequel thread. So, without further ado, what kinds of grammatical/orthographic/vocal misconformities drive you to an irrational ire?

Here's what's on kulade's mind at the moment; it's one of those strange ways they butcher the beautiful American language across the sea. Concerning mass nouns specifically musical groups:

Radiohead are one of the most talented and innovative bands of the most recent decade.
No. You are doing it wrong. Radiohead is a singular noun, therefore takes a singular verb form! Not to mention the content of this sentence is just as bad, whereas Radiohead is a totally garbage band.

But,
The Beatles were an important influence on both British and American culture.
This is a context where using a plural verb form is allowed and grammatically correct. "The Beatles" is not a mass noun. Note that "the Beatles" the band takes the same verb form as "the beatles" on my wall. Now I can't understand why anyone would stop that symmetry for bands with mass nouns for names.

In summary:
The tool is still lying on the floor. (Singular)
Tool is to release their next album next year. (Still singular)
Never "Tool are."


So guys. Please share the o-so-ardent fires of your grammarnazism.



(in before your/you're)

Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

This hath been said fifty-score times prior, but SERIOUSLY, people, stop confusing "it's" with "its"!
That's probably my biggest pet peeve. Also, an English teacher of mine once said that the use of the word "impact" to mean "effect" or "affect" bothered him. I'd never thought of it before, but suddenly, it became my pet peeve, too.

And I've a question: Is it proper to say, "A friend of Joe's", or "A friend of Joe"?

People who fail to use the subjunctive properly drive me nuts.

If I was? Pathetic...

Phrossack said:

And I've a question: Is it proper to say, "A friend of Joe's", or "A friend of Joe"?

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Well the proper prescribed form is "a friend of Joe," but I would probably say "a friend of Joe's." Likewise, I as well as most people, I believe, would say "a friend of mine" rather than the 'correct' form "a friend of me." Nouns inflected for possession like "Joe's" and "mine" should not me the the object of a preposition in the most correctest form of English.

@kulade: It doesn't happen only with band names. "The police are still looking for the man" is something I would expect to hear in the UK.

It sounds absolutely terrible to me too, and I would never use this, but that's actually how they taught me in English classes in school! Of course, my whole class (me included) being non-native speakers, you could have told us anything, and we would've believed it, but still... I could never agree to that, and it still sounds very bad to me now, after years of speaking the language and hearing most of the varieties of it.


That raises however another interesting point. How are we supposed to use other collective nouns? Would you say "the majority of the immigrants are young males", or "the majority of immigrants is young males"? There's still just one majority, you know... Which goes to show that those rules shouldn't be applied absolutely everywhere.

Well of course there are many times where it seems mass nouns should take a plural verb. I would probably favor "the police are" over "the police is." I'm not quite sure if there is a pattern as to which are treated as plural, but it seems to be a case by case basis. As you said "majority" should probably stay plural as well as "the United States" or "people."

Of course my main objection to the use as mentioned in the OP was about pluralizing natively singular nouns, but how words like "tool" switch into plurals only when used as band names. I don't really understand how that even could come about.

"Existance" and similar mistakes bother me.

"Defiantly" is certainly not the same as "Definitely".

"Loose" over "lose" is the only one that truly sets my teeth on edge.

gugalpm said:

People who fail to use the subjunctive properly drive me nuts.

If I was? Pathetic...

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The subjunctive mood used in that particular matter (expressing a counterfactual) has been optional in English for at least the past 100 years or so, if not more. It's still commonly used in other forms, such as to express a command, request, or suggestion. ("I ask(ed) that he be shown mercy.")

Besides, whining about it would lead to hypercorrection (far worse than a natural linguistic change) such that it would simply be bed as a conditional variant following words such as "if" and similar words even in the absence of a hypothetical situation. (Johnny asked me if I were afraid.)

Grammatical tenses and moods being shifted or outright lost is a common linguistic change. The optative mood was lost in Latin, for example, and in your native Portuguese, the perfect tense became the past tense, (much like in German, too) and the future tense was outright lost and replaced by a new construction.

"Existance" and similar mistakes bother me.
"Defiantly" is certainly not the same as "Definitely".
"Loose" over "lose" is the only one that truly sets my teeth on edge.

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Those are not grammatical errors

Yeah, but the term "Grammar Nazi" is also used for people who complain about spelling.

MilesGregarius said:

"Loose" over "lose" is the only one that truly sets my teeth on edge.

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very, very popular mistake amongst Germans. in that same line: "looser" is not the noun you were looking for, you wanted to say "loser".

ps: not you, miles, only just about every German with an internet connection.

OMG I just got nazi:d by Bill3000.

You know what I mean

Bill3000 said:

Those are not grammatical errors

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Grammar Nazi common usage.

scherbchen said:

very, very popular mistake amongst Germans. in that same line: "looser" is not the noun you were looking for, you wanted to say "loser".

ps: not you, miles, only just about every German with an internet connection.

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Non-native speakers doing it doesn't phase me; on-line, it seems to have almost become the standard form among native-speakers as well.

if by online you are referring to youtube, then maybe

I see "loose the game" more often than "lose" in most of the football and baseball forums I frequent.

MilesGregarius said:

Grammar Nazi common usage.

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If we're going with the common usage of the semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology of a language, as well as its orthography, then what's the point of being in this thread other than complaining about linguistic changes that aren't common enough yet?

MilesGregarius said:

I see "loose the game" more often than "lose" in most of the football and baseball forums I frequent.

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Lowest common denominator problem?

Bill3000 said:

The subjunctive mood used in that particular matter (expressing a counterfactual) has been optional in English for at least the past 100 years or so, if not more. It's still commonly used in other forms, such as to express a command, request, or suggestion. ("I ask(ed) that he be shown mercy.")

Besides, whining about it would lead to hypercorrection (far worse than a natural linguistic change) such that it would simply be bed as a conditional variant following words such as "if" and similar words even in the absence of a hypothetical situation. (Johnny asked me if I were afraid.)

Grammatical tenses and moods being shifted or outright lost is a common linguistic change. The optative mood was lost in Latin, for example, and in your native Portuguese, the perfect tense became the past tense, (much like in German, too) and the future tense was outright lost and replaced by a new construction.


Those are not grammatical errors

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It's common for whom? I don't think there's a single English grammar that proscribes the use of the subjunctive. Even my old American English textbooks point out to the correct use of the subjunctive, especially in conditional clauses.

Hypercorrection? The example you used shows how a complete half-wit would write in English... I guess that's just a language vice you native English-speakers have, from not knowing how to use the subjunctive. For me it's pretty clear.

Concerning Portuguese, those changes took place about 600 years ago. They're all pretty much defined in official grammar, both in Portugal and Brazil. It's completely different.