Grammar Queendom (Was: This will get longer, I'm sure.)

[geminigirl]

It's not "on accident" it's "by accident" or "accidentally"
You masturbate, you don't masterbate
Could have not could of, should have, not should of.

Comments

Oh!

[melaniesuzanne.livejournal.com]

I know who you are! (not that this post gave it away... :) it's just the first time I checked your userinfo). Heh heh heh.

Re: Oh!

[melaniesuzanne.livejournal.com]

It's been a couple of years, but if you were evlsnoopy on IRC, I was (and still am) Laria. And I once took you to IKEA for furniture. I think we both bought new bedframes on that trip.

[nmc.livejournal.com]

Could have not could of, should have, not should of.

Are we talking written or spoken?

"Could've" does sound quite a bit like "could of", and is perfectly correct. You can sort of see where a misspelling would've come from. So to speak.

"On accident", I'll agree, is annoying. Very annoying. Not, although, as annoying as I find "yous." Pet peeve of mine, though.

[geminigirl]

No. Spoken "could've" is just fine. It does sound like that depending on who's speaking. I'm talking about written language.

[malte.livejournal.com]

on accident

Another case where English is inconsistent and gets what's coming to it. The fight is on between on/by purpose/accident and I'd be quite happy if on accident won.

/malte, who found out to his cost this morning that respekt in Swedish is not exactly the same as respect in English - but give it another 10 years...

[cappyhead.livejournal.com]

If you don't care about something, one should say "I couldn't care less," not "I could care less."

[tactisle.livejournal.com]

Twelve items or fewer!

(interestingly enough, the supermarket here in town actually uses "fewer" on its signs. Weird.)

Re: Oh!

[geminigirl]

The two of you are scaring me. I hear eerie music...what small and strange world.

[schillerium.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm. To my ears, on accident rings more like a regional dialect variation than an error per se.

Despite the infamous soc.bi discussion some months back, however, I still can't parse could of/must of/should of as anything other than a sloppy misspelling of 've. The "have" is marking a verb tense, not just holding a random place that can be replaced with the auxiliary of one's own choosing.

A few others that do drive me crazy, however:
- irregardless
- supposably
- affect vs. effect
- congradulations
- Ghandi
- orientate, liaise and other verbs backformed out of nouns
- the haughty "You mean Mary and I" that people reflexively proffer even when the verb case actually does demand "me"

[schillerium.livejournal.com]

You masturbate, you don't masterbate

Mastur of your domain?

Yes, yes, I know, I just couldn't resist the pun. Please don't hurt me.

[katishna.livejournal.com]

I had grammar beaten into me as a youngster, so generally (other than IRC/other chat) I get rather wound about it. Here are my favorite peeves:

Its/it's. "Its" is possessive, as in "its button is missing". It's is for when you can replace "it's" with "it is". My poor husband gets grief on this all the time from me.

Your/you're. See above. I see this mistake (using "your" for "you're" on SO DAMN MANY signs in stores, even on engraved signs, that I've taken to quietly fixing them when I can reach them. Nazi? Yes. Bring it. :)

Thanks for the rant offering. After much fruitless shopping today (the "thou shalt not be fat" people strike again) I needed to bitch about something. :)

[geminigirl]

I'm teaching the health class at an alternative school this week...in their "Time Out Corner" (an anomaly at a high school) there is a sign which says, "Please do not talk to me. It will avoid getting both you and I in trouble."

Um, the rule that I was taught was to drop the other noun/pronoun and if you would use "me" if it were singular, then you should use me in the plural.

So afaik, the sign should say, "It will avoid getting both you and me in trouble." One wouldn't say, "It will avoid getting I in trouble," would they?