Do you have a pet peeve that flares up in the most annoying places? I usually encounter my pet peeves when I’m reading novels. It’s probably because I do freelance editing in my spare time and wish I could whip out my editing pencil and mark the changes. (Probably could, thinking about it, but then I’d have a book with editing scribbles.)
Since those editing scribbles would otherwise remain unread, I’ll share a few of my pet peeves here. Any literary editors out there are free to take notes and incorporate the changes accordingly.
- Your grandmother’s sister is not your "great-aunt." Just like your mother’s mother is your grandmother, so your mother’s aunt is your grandaunt. Just as you are your grandmother’s grandchild, so you are your grandaunt’s grandniece or grandnephew. Climbing up the family tree, your great-grandmother’s sister would not be your "great-great aunt" but your great-grandaunt; sliding down, you would be her great-grandniece/nephew. And so on. The male family titles take the same form.
- Although the usage is common enough today, a woman in a historical novel should not be dubbed "Mrs. Catherine Lennox." The title Mrs., according to historical protocol, was always used by a married woman or a widow with her husband’s full name. That means she was "Mrs. Nicholas Lennox." If she was divorced, she combined her maiden and married names and became "Mrs. Granger Lennox."
- I eagerly await the historical novel that takes note that the title "Ms." is not the invention of twentieth-century secular feminists, but has been dated by protocol historian Judith Martin (aka "Miss Manners") back to the Elizabethan period. It fell into disuse when the title from which it derived, "Mistress," took on implications inappropriate for chaste women, married and single. Once secular feminists pointed out that there should be a courtesy title for a woman to use with her own full name and that was not dependent on her marital status (as men have such a title in "Mr."), "Ms." was reborn. (Secular feminists did get a few things right.)
There. With that transcribed from my paperbacks to a blog, I feel much better now. 😉 Feel free to share your own pet peeves in the comments box.
O.k. here’s just one of mine. When chatting with someone I can’t stand when they can’t distinguish between to and too, your and you’re, their, there, and they’re. I can deal with basic typing mistakes, but very poor spelling and grammar bothers me. Does that make me a snob?
Kids calling adults by their first name. It just doesn’t sit well with me. I will always ask them for at least a “Mr. Tim” or “Miss Lisa”, or something similar.
oh, and i don’t think your a snob, jennifer, your just to sensitive. try to ignore there mistakes. 😉
People who say “supposebly” or write “should of” or can’t get the difference between “its” and “it’s”
Cool! It’s nice to know that the correct pronunciation for Ms. is not miz but mistress. I can’t wait to start using it! 😉
Oh, and speaking of grammatical pet peeves, my peeve is to confusion in the use of “than” and “then.” It seems that about half of American journalists don’t know when to use which one. You would think that “professional” wordsmiths (presumably with college degrees) would know the difference.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (dictionary.com) disagrees with your proscription of “great-aunt.” It is considered standard usage, and is therefore acceptable (in my book, at least).
I don’t think it makes you a snob, Jennifer, but why are you chatting with someone you can’t stand?
I personally despise the use of the word except when what is really meant is accept. Such use may be exceptional, but it is certainly not acceptable.
When a person’s “no” actually means “know”, it leaves me nonplussed.
When a person uses the word “nonplussed” to mean irritated or angered, rather than baffled, it leaves me both irritated and angered, but not baffled.
And finally, the much-maligned comma, so despised by the anal-retentive (yes, it is hyphenated) editor, while perhaps lending itself to the creation of unnecessary digressions and tangential comments, (much like an overuse of parentheses, (yes, parentheses; the word parentheses is plural, parenthesis is singular)) is still of great use and should not, under any circumstances, be summarily removed without due consideration, both to the writer and the reader (the editor is a distant third) no matter what one’s personal feelings are on the matter.
Also fragmentary or run-on sentences.
At the airport when they call for pre-boarding. There is no way a person can pre-board an airplane! You are either boarding or not!!
I think everyone has already listed all of my grammatical pet peeves!
One thing that always seem to happen is when I wear a newly laundered white shirt and somehow I manage to spill something red on it.
Or I do a load of laundry and one sock comes up missing its partner.
Or when I go to the supermarket to get something in particular and I get distracted and buy all sorts of unneeded things and then come home and realize I forgot the one thing I specifically went for!
LOL, the list can go on and on…
Authors who don’t know the difference between a half-sibling and a step-sibling.
Less and fewer. Nobody uses fewer anymore. Why not?
Turn indicators. Use them, please; let me know where you’re going & what you’re thinking. I’ll let one in, even if one is cutting me off, if one’s using one’s turn indicator.
All of the above gramatical & punctuational errors. But I’d add the misuse of our friend the semicolon. Really, it’s not as intimidating as some make it out to be.
Folks who use their outdoor voice in theaters & cinemas. (“Who’s that now?” What did she say?” “My, but he’s aged, hasn’t he?” “Oh, that dress is not flattering on her at all!” “Are those 2 still dating?”) I didn’t pay $10 to sit in your living room, thanks.
Historically inaccurate flowers.
England did not have goldenrod in the Middle Ages. Goldenrod is native to North America.
(By the same token, no chocolate, and no smoking, either, but goldenrod is much more prevalant.)
The one I cannot stand to hear is “I could care less” when what the person actually means is “I couldn’t care less.”
The one I cannot stand to hear is “I could care less” when what the person actually means is “I couldn’t care less.”
I agree with you, Robert K. That is the worst!
As soon as “aunt” took on the same “ae” sound as “grand”, the word’s demise was assured. Grandaunt is way too whiny and frontal-sounding to be correct American English phonology. “Great-aunt”, on the other hand, is easy to pronounce.
Irregardless…definitely, irregardless.
It was “real” good, or I’m “real” hungry. Should be “really.”
How about this: “I have a friend of mine who…” Should be “I have a friend who…” or “A friend of mine…”
Familiar NOT FER-miliar! The only “R” in that word comes at the end!! Just think, “family.” That is my main pet-peeve.
(Sorry for the sentence fragment, Bubbles. Your post had me laughing out loud!)
The main problem with my “familiar” pet-peeve is that such INTELLIGENT people do it!
I thought the correct word was ‘anti-dis-irregardless.
LOL! All of the above. 🙂
“Their,” “they’re,” and “there” used interchangeably; “your” substituted for “you’re”; “it’s” confused with “its”–yes, all that nonsense bothers me. But, let’s face it, this stuff’s rampant on the Internet, so what can ya do? I hold my nose and plod on. It’s a losing battle.
As a former printer’s proofreader, I’ve acquired a streak of picayune, pedantic, curmudgeonly schoolmarmishness, which has made me the bane of my colleagues (I’m in advertising now). But on the Internet–well, as I say, it’s a lost cause. I’ve thrown in the towel.
Dangling modifiers do still get a rise out of me, especially when they lead to hilarious unintended double entendres. But, then, even Jane Austen was prone to the occasional dangling modifier. Of course, one overlooks such slight slips in her case. Certain sins are exclusable for Genius which may not be quite so pardonable for the rest of us.
Just rambling….
Oops, that would be “excusable,” not “exclusable.” (The pedantic schoolmarm always trips herself up with a typo. :p)
Ek-Cetera
Asterik
I could care less
Cats with names like “princess …” or “lady …”
Cats in general
Chris
http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/
Pet peeve: an ellipses is not three periods.
It is four spaces separated by three periods, and a fourth period may be added at the end when appropriate.
Re: ‘fer’-miliar
It’s called “linking”. Orally inserting an “r” after vowels is exactly as correct and normal as not pronouncing r’s that’re there (“elision”). If you can pahk the cah in Boston, an English person can obey the lore. Fermiliar is the same sort of thing. Do you get het up about “comfterble”, too? That one’s got linking and elision, too!
Some spelling and usage stuff is worth a little worry, and some pronunciation troubles are just mistakes. But many of these peeves are just perfectly natural dialectal variation. People are _following_ underlying rules of English, not breaking them, when they find themselves pronouncing certain syllable combinations in certain ways. They are not being stupid.
But if sound changes really bother you, you are welcome to denounce all of English and retreat back to the other side of Grimm’s Law, where you can pronounce father as “pother”. 🙂 Or you might take a linguistics class on phonology and become much more relaxed about all the sound changes you’ll get to hear taking place in your lifetime.
Here’s a link to an online course on phonology:
http://www.celt.stir.ac.uk/staff/HIGDOX/STEPHEN/PHONO/PHONOLG.HTM
It’s a UK page, as you can see, so the examples and IPA pronunciation transcriptions are a little different from the ones we used in Toledo.
http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software.asp?id=12
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) font.
Useful for being really exact about pronunciation. 😉
Mine is people who pronounce “forte”, “for-tay”. It is pronounced “fort” when speaking about something at which you excell.
Press,
You mean “excel”, right?
Sorry, pet peeve of mine.
My pet peeve is people who are overly sensitive to grammatical errors…I don’t think it would have bothered Jesus too much whether someone mispelled a word or communicated in a way that was gramatically incorrect or used acidentally innapropriate vocabularly…such a pet peeve smacks of intellectual arrogance in my very humble and under-educated opinion.
God Bless.
Craig, thanks. As you can see, I’m not bothered by typos, just incorrect pronunciation. 🙂
Hi Michelle,
I have considered doing freelance editing myself, but I don’t know exactly where to begin. I have some informal experience with proofreading and editing, and I think that I’m pretty good at it. I’m especially good at finding grammar and spelling errors, though I’m perhaps not as good at rearranging sentences for better style or flow. Do you have any advice on how I could gain additional expertise and then launch a part-time career in editing? Please feel free to e-mail me by clicking on my name below, if you have time. Thanks!
Paul
And I can’t believe I forgot this one when I posted yesterday! People who do not get out of the way, pull over, or in any way take notice of emergency vehicles with lights flashing & sirens blaring! Chaps me to no end.
And I think I get your point, ukok, but it’s been my experience that folks today are rapidly losing the ability to write coherently & I think it’s mostly due the use of e-mail, especially in the business setting. It’s seen as being a rather informal mode of communication & folks seem to think they don’t have to use complete, or understandable, sentences when writing an e-mail. I can see how this practice could rapidly infiltrate all communication. And I’m . . . peeved by it! (Since we’re on the subject.) Because I’m expected to know what my business associate is trying to say & respond in an intelligent & productive manner which, quite often, is nigh on impossible! I end up writing back for clarification & wasting half a day waiting it to come. But, as you seem to be pointing out – & please correct me if I’m taking you wrong, we should always be kind & patient (in other words, Christ-like) in our communications with others so we don’t mistreat them when we know they’re using incorrect grammar. Yes? Like when a very good friend of mine uses the term “faux pas” in relation to something fake, like “faux pax suede.” I’m always tempeted to ask what social blunder the suede has committed. But, realizing it’s just her quirk, I shine it on. Because, really, it’s kinda cute of her.
But I really do dislike it when folks say “him & I” or “her & I” because it just . . . sounds wrong.
By the way, I’ll add my contribution to the list: One of my pet peeves is the term “pet peeve.” 🙂
Pet Peeves:
Who vs. Whom
Good vs. Well
People who don’t know how to merge onto the freeway 🙂
Traffic? Don’t get me started!
People who pass me on the freeway and then pull in front of me and SLOW DOWN! Also those who have been driving 5 mph under the speed limit for the last 3 miles and then ACCELERATE TO 75 as I am passing!
Use the wrassin’-frassin’ cruise control!
Just two questions for Jennifer first. How can you possibly detect the spelling of a spoken word Jennifer? You did use the term ‘chatting’ did you not? I have two current pet-hates; the use of ‘decimated’ to imply annihilation, when it should refer to the death of one person in ten, and the use of ‘jewllery’ in place of ‘jewellery’.
I agree with Gene as well as with Tim J from there posts several months ago! I once told my priest that I was angry and impatient with people in general. This was especially relating to slow moving folks in traffic or people in the supermarket line who can’t read the 10 items or less sign. (I still say that if you are in the fast lane on I-5, then you had better be going faster than me!) Fr Tom told me this was an opportunity to practice the virtue of patience. He also told me to view these annoying (my word) people as members of the Body of Christ and to treat them accordingly. That was good advice he gave me last year and I’m still working on it!
Tricia, you reminded me of an old joke: What do you call a 20-year-old with 12 items at the 10-items-or-less line in a supermarket in Cambridge, MA? Either an MIT student who can’t read or a Harvard student who can’t count.