Top 10 Misused English Words

[Lethul]

You're and Your I know the difference between at least It's and its is harder tho.

Ah well, nice to see the papers in UK at least have people working on correcting the spelling. Swedish top "news" paper seem to have a couple of spelling mistakes (or factual errors) in each article.

 

[Job]

English is still alive because of these evolutions, or 'mistakes' as the Grammar Nazi's like to call them.

My wife being a scouser says 'Them one's' which used to drive me up the wall till I realised it's actually a perfectly good alternative to 'those', I was just being a snob.


Which brings me to the ludicrous complexity of it all, you might say 'I'll take those', but if someone said 'are you sure', then you might well say..'yeah I'll take em (them)

 

[eksdee]

Grammar Naziism is good and appropriate IMO, for some things, but not for others.

For example, the apostrophe. It actually (as evidenced in the OP) affects meaning, so it's REALLY IMPORTANT.

Things like less than or fewer than can get to fuck off. It's like people raging at "can I get a <blank>". You ALWAYS know what the person means, and mutual intelligibility is KEY. If there is no mutual intelligibility, or there is potential for confusion then the 'correct' form should be used. Otherwise, there's utterly no point and it's just a bunch of old men ranting at the world, trying to be as pretentious as the French (who utterly hate it that several hundred French words are in popular English usage ).

Couldn't agree more.

I find the more obscure/picky ones interesting more than anything.

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

I'll admit there were a few on that list I didn't know about.

 

[mooSe_]

'Then' rather than 'than' really annoys me. For example "I had less then six".

 

[Roo Stercogburn]

Moose, you've forgotten the most annoying 'then'.

"And then....?"

 

[eksdee]

'Brought' and 'bought'. Uggggh.

 

[Wij]

'of' instead of 'have'

 

[Cerb]

'Brought' and 'bought'. Uggggh.

Wait who mixes up those two?

Sidebar - Was listening to the football ramble today and I heard their shout-out to your Tasche magazine!

 

[eksdee]

Brummies.

Ha. Yeah, was great . My site got about 2000 extra hits from that haha.

 

[Wij]

Yes, these things annoy me but remember, English is a language defined by its usage, not by some bitter old gits, like French is.

 

[Billargh]

I bet everyone proof reads their post about 5 times in a thread like this before submitting it.

 

[sayward]

When I was teaching, should of instead of should've or should have used to so annoy me.

Good way to remember the apostrophe usage is it usually means some missing letters. Except when it denotes ownership.

 

[eksdee]

Except when it denotes ownership.

...and the exception to that exception being when it's 'its'.

English is stupid.

 

[Ezteq]

How about awesome

I've always found it interesting that it's mostly native english that make these "mistakes", or misuses.

omg that realllllllllllllllllygets up the crack of my arse (figuratively speaking). The reason for this is that I had this annoying bf who used to say every fucking thing was awesome, for example:
Me: 'want a cup of tea?'
Him: 'Yeah that'd be awesome!!!!1111'
My Brain: 'no, it's tea, it will satisfy your thirst, it's quite good, but it will NOT leave you awe struck you irritating tit'

My mouth: '...ok'



Seriously, if you want to make yourself sound like a gigantic fucking cretin just announce that everything is 'awesome' and I can assure you that within (literally) seconds of you doing it your mission will be accomplished.


Anyway, rant over hehe. I was working on something a while ago, wanted to check that the example I was using was appropriate and found this article amusing and helpful: How to remember the difference between a Sisyphean, Promethean, and Herculean task « How to Create a Garden of Inhuman Delights

 

[Access Denied]

We have an in-house style guide. The style of English we used is very much rooted in the past - it is a family-run newspaper that has been around for over 150 years so there is a big emphasis on tradition.

I had never done anything remotely close to proof reading before getting the job, and I was actually employed on the strength of my graphic design work (my job is about 70% graphic design, 30% proof reading). They pretty much trusted I could do the proof reading because I got a 1st on my dissertation, ha. (And I studied illustration!) I had about 3 days of training, got shown all the proofing marks and then just set off on it. It's honestly a very easy job if you have the right mindset for it, if you're easily distracted or prone to letting your mind wander then you'll be bad at it. My desk for proof reading is in the editorial office which can get very loud/busy so I always wear headphones while working or I miss things.

In my experience, which is limited, it's all about trying to keep your focus and keep your reading to a steady pace. Not so fast that you miss obvious things, but not so slow that you over-think and do unnecessary additions or subtractions which ultimately detracts in some way from the writer's work. I think the real 'art' of proof reading is being able to reach a balance where your corrections keep things flowing, ensure consistency both in terms of the narrative and style, as well as the obvious things like double spaces, grammar, spelling etc but at the same time ensuring the piece retains the identity of the person who wrote it.

Honestly if you've worked as a journalist, or any other job involving English as its primary focus you can easily do the average proof reading job. I have no idea how it translates to more high brow or high end publications though.

Proof read this for you. That makes better grammatical sense.

 

[Huntingtons]

arent many of those people who dont know how to type rather than a misunderstanding of the actual meaning of the word? the people who type "your" "than" instead of "you're" and "then" probably dont mean to use those words but are stupid..?

 

[old.Tohtori]

the people who type "your" "than" instead of "you're" and "then" probably dont mean to use those words but are stupid..?

The stupidity of that statement is quite a hefty one, especially considering how multi-cultural the internet is.

 

[Job]

You can qitue elsiay raed stencenes with the middle words jumbled up, kinda makes a mockery of splleing.

 

[TdC]

that's not correct: in fact, while you often only need the first and last letters to construct the meaning of the words in the sentence this is mostly because you learned how to spell the entire word, and with that, it's meaning long before you learned to recognize the patterns in a sentence.

 

[Ormorof]

yeah if you never learn to spell in the first place your brain wouldnt be able to work out bad spelling

i dont really put much effort into spelling or grammar on forums tbh, but if i am writing an official document ill check, check and check again, and usually get one or two others to check it too. just to be sure to be sure!