I'm usually pretty good with my English. My grammar is usually spot on... and I'm generally careful with getting the right word in the right place. It is, after all, a significant part of my job. Sometimes though, I do fall down... and I have a good friend who enjoys finding such gaffes and sent me a note the other day with a few examples from previous blog entries. Thanks Tom ;-)
In one, I quoted the phrase from the United Church of Christ, "Don't place a period where God places a comma," except I misspelled comma - I wrote "Don't place a period where God places a coma." And I did it more than once so it wasn't a simple typo. Tom enjoyed wondering what it looked like when God put people into a prolonged unconscious state. In another blog I said something like "illicit a response," but of course meant, "elicit a response" although an illicit response might have been entertaining.
So I've been thinking about the wrong words/poor grammar issues that make me cringe... here are a few...
Irregardless - no such word. It is a conflation of regardless and irrespective.
There, Their, They're. Three very different words even though they all sound the same. Use the right one in the right place. There = a place. Their = a possessive, belonging to them. They're = a contraction of "they are." Every time I see the wrong one in the wrong place, I can hear my 8th grade English teacher exploding.
The wrong prepositions... don't you just hate it when people confuse the usages of him/he, her/she, me/I ?
What grammar/word choices issues get under your craw? Can you list some more? Or write a sentence using a bunch of the ones that make you cringe?
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