Does the misuse of their, there, and they're ...

[11 Bravo]

as well as your and you're, drive anyone else nuts? Or am I an anal-retentive nitpicker? (Damn, I'm pretty sure I just opened myself up to some serious abuse!) But seriously folks, those aren't typos; and they simply make the user appear lazy, or uneducated, or both.

[notadmblnd]

1. No, it drives me nuts too.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. It drives me nuts.

Especially when I do it. I know better, but sometimes I type the wrong thing anyway.

[BigDaddyLove]

3. You what else drives me nuts?

People who use '2' instead of two, or '4' instead of four. They're not typos, they simply make the user appear lazy, or uneducated, or a Prince wannabe, or all three.

:P

[Bertha Venation]

YES. It drives me BATS.

:grr:

You're right. They're not typos--people think they're correct!

People don't know how to use the language, and it pisses me off!

[RobertSeattle]

4. Clear signs of a poorly constructed language! (English!)

It too bad that the world's most important and influential language has so many words with duplicated sounds and meanings. If we ever are visited by aliens they'll think we are nuts with such a language.

[Mrs. Venation]

5. Yes, It Drives Me Nuts

I wonder how many poor English teachers there are! Words are so very powerful, and they should be used correctly to exploit their full potential. People who misuse those simple words look lazy, complacent or both. It just isn't that difficult to get it right! :shrug:

Rant over.

[Liberal Christian]

22. Until people see that there are consequences . . .

. . . they often just don't pay attention. When I taught Freshman Comp in college, the students' grammar, punctuation, and usage were often atrocious. I know they had studied these things in elementary school, junior high, and high school. They continued to make the same mistakes.

They thought it was unfair that I deducted points from essays for grammatical errors. You should have heard them howl when a teacher in another discipline like history, math, science, or sociology also deducted points for grammar, spelling, and mechanics. "Gee, it's not like it was an ENGLISH paper!!!!"

When I asked them if they wanted to appear illiterate to their future employers, they all replied with confidence that their secretaries would proofread for them. It didn't occur to them that they might BE the secretary.

I will admit that there are probably some less-than-competent English teachers out there. I still say that more often than not, the problem is a student who doesn't care and a society that doesn't value correct usage.

[youngred]

drives me up a bloody wall

My other pet peeve is Doing 'Good'...no, you're not donating to AIDS patients, or building homes for Habitat for Humanity, you're doing WELL.

[tinrobot]

6. I'm a grammar/spelling snob.

It totally bugs me.

Writing like that is the internet equivalent of backcountry hick speak. It sounds uneducated and uncultured.

[Shrek]

7. Your being silly

Theirs no reason to loose any sleep over such a minor issue. The failure to tow a particular grammatical line may not jive with your viewpoint, but can you sight even one case where it makes a difference?

[tridim]

11. Shouldn't that be

"jive with YOU'RE viewpoint"? :D

[youngred]

13. twould better make the point

there's a bunch of mistakes in there ;-)

[BigDaddyLove]

16. There ARE?

?

[youngred]

18. at least 4 I see

your theirs loose sight

should be

you're there's lose cite

[Shrek]

19. You missed a couple

jive should be jibe

tow should be toe

[youngred]

24. wasn't sure about toe/tow so left it

and the other seemed an odd word choice, but I didn't question it.

Thanks though.

[Shrek]

14. Rats

Can't believe I missed that one.

Good catch. :hi:

[skypilot]

12. I'm write their with U, DoubleDigitIQ

*

[TheDebbieDee]

8. Another thing that drives me nuts is..............

when someone uses "to" when they should use "too".

Doesn't that drive you crazy, to? ;^)

[tridim]

9. Never visit Freerepublic.com

your head will explode. "Huge" == "Hugh" is prevalent over there as well.

[Faygo Kid]

10. I to hate it's missuse

Cant anybody spell rite or use grammer. Sentense fragmetns to. Thers a real probelem, their. Our wundrful Preisedent must use his edukashun and strategery to help us.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

15. Wanna see my head explode?

Misuse those terms... :nuke:
Duckie

[Gemini Cat]

17. It bothers me.

It bothers me, but the substitution of 2 for to and too and the rest of the Prince 'talk' bothers me a lot more.

:dem:

[11 Bravo]

37. You must love my user name.

n/t

[Blue-Jay]

20. Doesn't quite drive me nuts,

but "rediculous" does. Go figure.

[Robb]

21. Your rite

This is an issue that resignates with me to, allright. :P

[Warren Stuart]

23. I could care less

I mean if I tried real hard maybe I could care less, it is possible.

[displacedtexan]

25. Lately, the whoevers and whomevers are getting to me.

whoever- must be the subject of a clause
whomever- can't be the subject of a clause (except this one)

[nini]

26. nah... I make the mistake of typing phonetically sometimes too

I've made typos like that when I meant 'they're' but typed 'there' or 'their'.

I know the difference, but don't always catch it unless I proofread. It's because I'm typing phonetically. No big deal unless I'm typing something for work or equally important.

[MissMillie]

27. It is a pet peeve of mine

I never thought mastering proper word usage was all that difficult when it came to these words, but....

[Pithlet]

28. It could be a typo

For example, I know when to use "its" and when to use "it's". But, I type very fast, usually as I'm thinking about what to type. A lot of the time I have a baby in my arms, so I type one handed. Sometimes "It's" comes out when it should be "its". Sometimes I see it and correct it, but not always.

So, even though I notice other's mistakes, I usually give the benefit of the doubt. When they do the same thing over and over, it's likely they just aren't aware they're making a mistake. Even so, it really isn't an indication of the person's intelligence or education.

And, let's face it. These are posts on a board, not a resume, term paper, or a letter to a head of state. I really don't pay quite as much attention to detail here as I would for any of those things.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

29. Yes, especially

when I realize that I'm the guilty party!

Usually I catch myself when I proofread my post; but I've occasionally missed one.

Based on my personal slip-ups, I do think others' misusage is often a typo...the result of right-brain writing and
left-brain snoozing, perhaps?

[Westegg]

30. Nitpicker? Maybe you're just literate.

All such errors drive me crazy, especially when I see them printed in magazines and newspapers, as I often do. It's one thing if you're posting an instant message to a site, and perhaps don't have the time to proofread as carefully as you could (SHOULD, in my opinion). It's quite another to realize that errors like these frequently make it by the proofreaders and copy-editors who are EMPLOYED to correct such things.

My pet peeve is "IT'S versus ITS." One's a contraction, the other's a possessive. It ain't that hard, man! A friend of mine recently started teaching "freshman essay writing" at a university, and I made her swear that she would press home the issue of ITS versus IT'S. Until it hurt.

Frankly, my interest in reading something drops off significantly when I come across fundamental grammar errors such as these---and my estimation of the writer's basic intellect does as well.

Oh well. Its a free country!

[BigDaddyLove]

31. Which two words does ain't contract?

?

[FlaGranny]

34. Want to get confused?

"It is true that we should not say, "you ain’t", "they ain't", or "she ain’t" but we should say, without a scintilla of shame, "ain’t I?" rather than "aren’t I". "Aren’t I" is just as ungrammatical as "I aren’t" where "ungrammatical" means that it violates the rules, the speaking conventions, of the English language."

See the following url for the rest. :-)
http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/drlang003.html

[Beaker]

32. don't forget here and hear...

as well as were, we're, where, wear and wares.

and the proper use of an apostrophe(it isn't used when pluralizing word's)

[Buns_of_Fire]

35. Here, here. It's enough to make you loose your mind.

:evilgrin:

[TrogL]

33. Are you sure that's how your supposed to use a semicolon?

*snickers* :evilgrin:

[PVnRT]

36. Yes

:grr:

[TrogL]

38. Misuse of "grow"

It seems to be a new fad - to use "grow" when you mean "increase".

I think it may have started with a famous author's book "How to grow a novel". He was using the word in the context of "how to grow a garden" but it got bastardized somehow.

I've heard "how to grow a partition" ie. make it larger.

[Nay]

39. makes me grind my teeth

They are so easy to tell apart if you have any brains at all, that it's a shame they are ever misused. It instantly makes me put the writer in the "ignorant" category. Sometimes that's not correct, but often it is.

[mantis49]

40. Drives me nuts too

And you even see it on business signs and in ads!