Thursday, March 17, 2011

Grammatical Pet Peeves

Just in case you needed more proof of how neurotic I am, I decided to occasionally post on something that drives me completely bananas: Bad Grammar. Now, I concede that my own grammar is not always perfect, I’m a victim to run on sentences like the majority of Italian speakers, but I do know what a run on sentence is. Sure, sometimes I make mistakes too, who doesn’t? I could certainly proofread more, but I believe I do have the basics of grammar and spelling down. Incidentally, a great proofreading tip I got back in my translating days was to change the font, size and even color of the draft often while proofreading, it helps the eye catch mistakes.


So, back to grammar et al. most of the time I mis-grammaticize on purpose, and I make up words on purpose, I know what I’m doing is wrong and I do it for a reason, even though often that reason is apparent only to me. Mostly I do it because I want the writing on my blog to be more colloquial, more spontaneous. So what on earth am I going on about?
 There are mistakes being made all over the ether that are neither justified nor voluntary, they are quite simply the result of bad grammar and laziness. And that’s what drives me nuts. (fragment) So occasionally I’ll post on one such error that particularly irritates me, thus exorcising it, so it no longer bothers me. In this manner I’m hoping to achieve the zen-like calm that appeals to me yet eludes me completely.


Today’s pet peeve is: WOULD OF. What you actually meant to write is WOULD HAVE, in fact word just went all apeshit on me trying to correct it. What I’m talking about here is the third conditional and you use it when you want to talk about something that could have happened, but didn’t, in the past. For example: If I had won the lottery, I would HAVE left my job. (You can use the contraction would've)
In any case, there is no reason on God’s green earth to write “would of”. Ever. So don’t, just don’t.
Gosh, I feel so much better now!

5 comments:

  1. The would of drives me crazy as well. I get how you could make the mistake if you're just thinking of pronunciation, but it still drives me nuts.

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  2. Good lord, finally someone said it. I'm reading a book right now, ten years old, regular big publisher, where it's used in direct speech. I suppose an excuse might be to underline the characters' stupidity, but it still much bothers me. Because it's so friggin' stupid. I know no ESL person who makes that mistake.
    Here's another one: our/are. Some people... don't know.

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  3. Oh, now I've tried to see if I use that "would of" instead of "would have" - I was experimenting with sentences and I think I'm good. This feels really odd because I started posting a pet peeve on Thursdays a few weeks ago. One of those strange co-incidences.

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  4. I love this post! "Would of" is just one example of grammatical idiocy. I vented on Twitter earlier about people who say "woah" instead of "whoa"....the list goes on (though I am aware I, also, am not perfect with grammar)!

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  5. I love this post! "Would of" is just one example of grammatical idiocy. I vented on Twitter earlier about people who say "woah" instead of "whoa"....the list goes on (though I am aware I, also, am not perfect with grammar)!

    ReplyDelete