Confessions of a Grammar Freak

obsess about adverbs. Big time.

Maryn said:

What do you do that 'normal' people don't when it comes to the written word?

Confess. We won't tell a soul...

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Before I start, how much time do you have?

I interrupt dinner to fetch a dictionary to settle word questions.

I've used a science museum's feedback form to complain about typos and grammos in the explanatory placards (gotta be a word for those wall-mounted things next to the rocks and fishtanks and skeletons).

Some people draw mustaches on faces pictured in advertising posters. Instead, I – well, you can guess.

I'm fairly grammar obsessed - even though I bow to others (who shall remain nameless).

I'm just quite surprised it was Maryn who started this thread.

Unique - who is sometimes punctuationally challenged. (and loves a good semi-colon.)

reph said:

...to fetch a dictionary...

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Ever share a romantic evening with Webster’s? Ever have a glass of Merlot and run your fingers down its leathery spine, smelling its old ink smell? Ever open it randomly, letting it whisper to you? mess...mess...to make dirty. Ohhhh YES!

I just about go beserk when I look at my daughter's homework. I SO BADLY want to fix everything, but God forbid I mention a mistake!!!!

The joy of having a daughter who's sixteen!!!

It freaks me out when people don't use commas when they should––although I love to use "em dashes".

Hannah said:

It freaks me out when people don't use commas when they should––although I love to use "em dashes".

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Me, too! And a good thing or I'd be a commaholic in need of a meeting.

Hehe. I have just shown this thread to my Hubby with a comment - "See, it must be a writer thing!"

I'm generally a bit annoying with having to find out the correct meaning for words, or questioning further when people misuse them, or scoffing at the boss' work emails when there are grammatical errors etc; more recently I made a big song and dance over phrasing that "just did not make sense" in a birthday invitation that we received.

I do things like this though not to be a hero, but to learn...

Yay, I feel normal!

I confess! I confess!

I feel guilty when I end a sentence w/ a preposition. I do it in casual conversation and postings, but I still feel guilty. I also use sentence fragments and start sentences with conjuctive phrases. I'm addicted to complex sentences, too.

I want to correct my husband's grammar, now that we have kids. He says "lay" when it should be "lie," and it bugs me. (He also uses "ain't" sometimes, among other things.) I refrain from correcting most of the time--it only makes him feel self-conscious, makes me feel like a nitpicker, and he doesn't remember why it should be one way and not the other, anyway.

What sticks in my craw the most is children's television programming. I hear "he and I" when it is the object of a preposition, I hear "who" for "whom," and other mistakes that ring that grammar bell in my head. It's bugged me so much I've thought about writing my congressman and asking him to introduce a bill that children's programming should be required to have no non-standard English! Not because I'm a grammar snob, but because I know that children inevitably pick up whatever they hear--so why shouldn't they hear what is correct?

(Climbing off my soapbox now . . . )

My bosses seem to be virtually illiterate. Therefore every memo sent down from head office (especially the disagreeable ones) gets returned with spelling and grammar corrections marked in red pen. Since they're unlikely to be able to spell 'attitude', 'negligence' or 'incompetence', I'm pretty sure they can't fire me for it.

I can't help it. I inherited it from my mother, I think. She was a proofreader before I was born and has always pounded grammar into my head. I may not always use it well when I post here, but it irks me when I don't.

Until just a few years ago, Mom would red-pen letters I had written her and show me my mistakes when I visited her. That was annoying.

Microsoft Word may just be the death of me one day. Spellcheck seems to add more errors than it corrects! It drives me up the wall to be typing away and see the little wavy underline pointing out an "error", only to find out their suggestion for correcting it is wrong.

I really, really want to go round with a can of red paint and correct misspelt graffiti.

What do you do that 'normal' people don't when it comes to the written word?

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Place my commas before my but however, I'm currently in rehab for that.

I sometimes rebel and spell the word panic as panick.

hooooweeee, I can see I still have a long way to go... I don't even know any jokes about comma placement or apostrophe's....grammer is the bane of my existence. I don't understand it, the "wrong" way seems right to me in the exercises..sigh...

I've been known to make corrections on menus. Menu typos make me crazy! But a lot of the time, they're covered in thick plastic and there's no way to fix them. Plus, you've got just one of dozens in your grasp; what good does it do to change just one. It's an uphill battle.

I love you people.

Anyone else read Eats, Shoots & Leaves and find errors? I don't mean the UK-vs.-U.S. type. Still, a funny read.

I feel guilty when I end a sentence w/ a preposition. I do it in casual conversation and postings, but I still feel guilty.

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I do, too!

I'm not hard on people in spoken language. I think that when we're talking in casual conversation that getting the point across is enough. I understand my cousins' sentences peppered with ain't and gunna just fine. It does make me crazy when people pronounce the 'l' in salmon.

What gets me is the spelling errors that could be caught with a quick spellcheck. Frusterated drives me nuts. Febuary, suprise, millenium, oh my!

However, I absolutely have to copy and paste them into Word so I can fix all the errors before sending them on. (A lot of funny people apparently can't punctuate dialogue, or stay in one verb tense.) My friends never mention it, but my family's convinced that I'm a loon, taking time to copy edit before forwarding.

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Guilty, too. I rarely forward things for this reason.

Mamawamba said:

What gets me is the spelling errors that could be caught with a quick spellcheck. Frusterated drives me nuts. Febuary, suprise, millenium, oh my!

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What about Wensday or Sophmore?

Hubby is unapologetically bad with anything related to language arts. When he was in high school, his teachers thought he was SO darn cute and so darn smart, they allowed him to spell and write any way he pleased. He had marks on his papers in red: -CS- Stood for "Creatively Spelled". He is a very intelligent person. He was never made to leran how to spell what he didn't already know how to spell. And his punctuation! ~exasperated sigh~ There are no periods and no commas in his writing. Just ... That's it. He separates thoughts with "..." until the end of a paragraph. He says, "You know exactly what I am trying to say, so what is the point?"

How do you argue with that, especially since it has been drilled into his head since he was a kid that he's allowed to make his own rules? He is writing a book. A very interesting book, too. When I tell him that he will need to do a lot of rewrites, he grins & tells me that I'll do it for him.

Carole said:

He is writing a book. A very interesting book, too. When I tell him that he will need to do a lot of rewrites, he grins & tells me that I'll do it for him.

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And most likely you will - ain't love grand? ~laughing~

You know it's karmic law that the 'neat tool people' marry the 'messy tool people' and the 'grammar/spelling fiends' marry the gramatically/or functionally' illiterate.

in the written word:

"wet" instead of "whet" my appetite

mixing up "your" and "you're"

(sorry americans) as a canadian, i LOATHE any word that is spelled without it's u, for example. "honor" vs "honour" or "neighbor" vs "neighbour". a few more pet peeves are "check" vs. "cheque", "jewelry" vs "jewellery". i do not understand why microsoft word does not have cdn/british spellings; the cdn. setting is french, god damn them! i have to turn off all the spelling checks or else i would go insane.


in the spoken word:

"last night i seen on tv..." ARGH!

"valentimes' day"

double negatives

i never correct people, just suffer in silence, bite my lip and try to think happy grammar thoughts...

Unique said:

And most likely you will - ain't love grand? ~laughing~

You know it's karmic law that the 'neat tool people' marry the 'messy tool people' and the 'grammar/spelling fiends' marry the gramatically/or functionally' illiterate.

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*grumble grumble* Well, I'll not enjoy it, and he can't make me enjoy it.