I am not exactly a scholar of the English language, nor do I consider myself an authority on grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and the like. Nonetheless, I do occasionally find myself offended by spelling and punctuation errors that are simply stupid, especially when they are made by native English speakers/writers.
Lately I have been assaulted by a merciless onslaught of such errors. Some of the best (read: worst) ones:
-"aloud" instead of "allowed."
-"grown with anticipation." (I'm breaking out in hives over this one.)
-"free reign" instead of "free rein." (Then again, maybe that's the same thing? Kinda?)
-"plat towed." I did NOT make that one up. What's that you say? What does it mean? Oh. Well, as it appeared in the sentence, I believe the writer meant "plateaued." Yeah.
-"Definantly." Definitely not.
-"Perculation."
-"... my sister, whom reads ..." (Note to the writer: usage of the word "whom" does not impress anyone with your intelligence unless you use it correctly. )
-Misplaced apostrophes: "brother's" when the author clearly meant "brothers (plural)," "parent's" instead of "parents'," and of course the ubiquitous "it's" used possessively.
I have to stop now. I'm about to start bleeding from the eyes. I could go on, but I wont'. (See? Misplaced apostrophes are irritating!)
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1 comment:
OMG - retching now...
On that note, I read a fictional book recently that employed misused clichés to make the dialog flow:
"Tell you the truth, I..."
She didn't succeed. The dialog stank. What *is* it with writers?
I DID recently read a book that was beautifully written - The Maytrees by Annie Dillard. Not quite the ending you'd expect, but lovely, lovely, lovely.
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