Tuesday, May 28, 2013

i'm a grammar nazi (delusional rant #1)

Don't get me wrong, I rely heavily on creative ...uh... license when I write blog posts and not everything I do is correct.  For some reason I'm in love with ellipses ... and I'm sure I overuse them.

I also write incomplete sentences.  Just so.

However, there are a few things that send me straight to the looney bin ... so to ease my neurosis, I posted those things here.  Punctuation things and grammar things.  (See?  More incomplete sentences.)

The top ten list of things that make Andi cuckoo-baroo bat-shit crazy:

#10.  Who's and Whose.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?  Correct.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?  Correct.

Who's means WHO IS.  It's a contraction.  (Not the having-a-baby kind.)
Whose is the possessive case of Who.

Little Cindy Lou Who, who's no more than 2, whose gifts were stolen from the Grinch.  Got it?

#9. Their, They're, There.

I don't have the energy to explain this.  There's a big difference betwixt the three.  Please use them correctly.  See below.







#8. To and Too

Too funny!  Correct!  You find me something quite funny!
To funny!  Incorrect!  Unless you're on a quest!




#7. Its/It's/Its'   AND  Your and You're

Once again, we have the difference between possessive and contraction.  

Can you believe the bicycle lost its wheel?  Correct.  Possessive.  No apostrophe.

Can you believe it's still raining?  Correct.  Contraction.  It is still raining.  (That's why I'm typing this stupid post instead of building my new house.)

Its' ... Guess what?  There's no such thing.  Always wrong.  Don't use it.  Ever.

Your is possessive, and You're is a contraction...


And just as a side note, there's no such thing as your's.  That would mean your is.  And that's just silly.  Yours would be correct.

#6. Should have went.  WRONG!!!

Should have gone.  Correct! 

Learn it.  Remember it.  Use it correctly.  And while I'm at it ...

"Should of" is incorrect as well.  I believe you're trying to say should've.  
 

#5. The big rock outside your house that says The Smith's.

That actually means The Smith is.  Or, if The Smith's Home is implied, that means the home only belongs to one Smith (singular possessive) ... if the implied home belongs to ALL the Smiths, it would be Smiths' home (both plural and possessive).  If you simply mean the Smiths as a collection, there's no apostrophe.  It's simply The Smiths.  Or the Williamsons.

Yay!  Correct!




Boo!  Wrong!

 

#4.  I seen.  Wrong!

I saw.  I have seen.  I had seen.  Correct!



#3.  Realtor is pronounced real-tor NOT ree-lih-ter.  There is no vowel between the L and the T ... therefore, no extra syllable.  (It's pronounced just like it's spelled ... huh ... imagine that.)

Real-tor  Real-tor  Real-tor!  (Come on...say it out loud a dozen times and it will stick...I promise!!)




#2.  Periods and commas always always always go INSIDE the quotation marks.

"Always."

Do it just like Abe does it.  See?  Period before the closed quotations.



(Other punctuation such as ! and ? can go outside, but that's a lesson for another day.)

And the #1 thing that drives Andi crazy:

#1. The past tense of "to drag" is DRAGGED!  Not drug.  Please, please, please say no to drug!

I drug my feet.  I drug him down the stairs.  I drug that piece of furniture out of the basement.  Incorrect and makes me homicidal.

I dragged your sorry ass out of grammar school before this was burned into your brain.  Correct.

(And see the period and comma inside the quotes below??  Yay!!)


I do realize I left out some punctuation in the rant above.  I didn't want to confuse the issues.  I also realize I post all my titles in lower case.  I do that intentionally.  In fact, any mistakes you find in my blog ... I made intentionally.


What drives you crazy?  Besides neurotic people like me who write posts about things that drive them crazy? 

15 comments:

  1. Oh, I totally agree with you on this one. I have a couple phrases that drive me up a wall. " I could care less" for example. So, you're saying that you must care somewhat if you "COULD care less" instead of "couldn't care less"? I've tried to explain that one to people and they still don't get it. It's just one of those dumb, American idioms. I'm too scared to say anything on my blog, because then I'll be held to my own standard and I'm bound to embarrass myself!

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  2. Great! The one that I can't stand is, "if you will." It seems it's said at the end of any sentence, and makes no sense at all.

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  3. All that, and the store name is Wal-mart, not Wal-marts. Bleh! "Your" instead of "you're" is the one I see most often, but seriously, they are all signs of a meager education! :)
    tm

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  4. I love a grammar refresher. I am sure I am guilty of at least a few of these...I mean...I happen to like these too!

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  5. bahaha Sometimes I see it after I hit publish then I'm like, "I don't care!" but I hate when people write in text speak especially when they're over 35.

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  6. thank you english teacher andi for the review!! i am annoyed with other peoples grammer as well, but catch myself all the time with run ons, spelling errors....you name it!

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  7. You are hilarious! I live in a land where people say "youens" as in "Are youens going to the bar tonight?" Pray for me.

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  8. This is too funny!! I have a thing for ellipses too, and I'm guilty of overusing them, but I love them and can't give them up. lol. I'm an ellipse addict!

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  9. I couldn't read someone's blog because they used the word, well, not a word, 'brang'. I also lost faith in HGTV when describing a home as 'orientated' towards the west.

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  10. Well, I hope you don't get too mad when you read my blog. I do my best, but English is only my second language. Now, if you see any mistakes, feel free to tell me anytime, I'd be happy to correct them. I love grammar in both French and English.

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  11. I screw up all over my blog, feel free to point it out to me! I think we all get lazy as we get older. Or it has been so long since we were in school, we can't remember :) I'm going with that one...I am too old to remember what they taught me in school!

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  12. Could not love you more right now....

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  13. Try this. The apostrophe is a replacement for the second i in it is.
    This must be the most common error in blogland, it's for its.
    All one has to do is look at 'it's' and think, do I mean 'it is'? 'Cause that's what I've written. Or do I mean its?
    But I think that no matter how many rants, it will continue.
    Nice job, though. Hope you feel better 'til the next one.
    Love your attitude. New follower.

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    Replies
    1. Yay! New friends! I don't know what got into me that day...I just had to let it all out. :)

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  14. Either I'm having a slow week, or I'm a deranged stalker, because here I am commenting AGAIN!

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    Okay, I'll end the suspense: slow week, not deranged stalker. I am a (mostly) unashamed grammar lover; I knew there was a reason I liked your blog (BTW, please note the semicolon) apart from your humor: it's the proper use of grammar. Hooray for grammar!

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