rediculous. just rediculous.

[cali]

is this the most common du spelling error? Or just the most irritating?

[seabeyond]

1. ah hahahahaha. i was going to say, ridiculous. ridiculous. my pet peeve

in spelling. and yes, so common i thought you misspelled, looked at your name and thought wtf.... surprised you spelled rediculous. lol lol

[Brickbat]

2. Tow the line. That one always gets me hoppin'.

[mwb970]

10. Like many of these errors, "tow the line" results from listening but not reading.

People spell things the way they sound because they have never read the correct version. This is exacerbated in this particular case by the fact that one could theoretically "tow" a line (dragging it behind you, I guess), although the image makes no sense in sentences like "republicans always tow the line".

[Lance_Boyle]

3. irregardless of weather your rite or not

its rediculoulsy assnine.

[petronius]

31. I really like "assnine" - it makes me smile every time... (nt)

[ellenfl]

39. irregardless!!! my grammar pet peeve. ok, one of them.

'nucular' and 'realator' are two others. as a real estate paralegal, i have to stop myself from asking realtors how they spell that mispronunciation. :eyes:

ellen fl

[Romulox]

4. Waist of bandwith?

:silly:

[cali]

7. c'mon. I happen to know this bugs you too.

[mwb970]

5. The most common error is using "it's" for "its".

Not just on DU, everywhere. Why these two three-letter words, with one meaning "it is" and the other meaning "of it" simply cannot be spelled correctly by Americans baffles me. I learned the rule in elementary school and have never forgotten it. Am I alone?

Sure you have your "rediculous" and your "loose" instead of "lose" (argh), but the inability to spell "its" is the most irritating to me.

[cali]

9. that's definitely a contender but using it's for its is not a spelling error

it's grammatical in nature. And then there's using the possessive when you mean to use the plural. Just saw someone repeatedly write "the Israeli's" when they meant "the Israelis."

[mwb970]

14. I hate the apostrophized plurals too!

Especially people who use it arbitrarily, as in "the student's picked up their books". Why not "book's" then??

[EOTE]

34. I think the its/it's misspellings has a lot to do with the confusing nature of English.

I see a lot of people use "it's" as a way of saying "of it" because we tend to use apostrophes to denote possession. It's only in this one particular case where there's already a word "it's" that means "it is", so you can't use the apostrophe for possession or you'd have two words spelled the same but meaning different things (I know there are many other incidences of this in the English language). I'm perfectly capable of using the proper form of it's/its, but just about every time I see "its" written, something in the back of my mind says that there should be an apostrophe there. In fact, the only time that it would really make perfect sense to me would be if "its" is used as a way of saying that there is more than one "it" as in "Look at all those its over there!".

[mwb970]

48. If it's any comfort, this "error" will eventually be deemed "correct".

That's how languages change. Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. If enough people use "it's" as a possessive, for a long enough time, it will become first "acceptable" and then ultimately "correct". I'm sure purists like me posted to long-ago forums complaining about how "thee" and "thy" were being replaced by the obviously incorrect "you" and "your".

I agree that it's a confusing situation. But there is a rule, it's pretty easy, and schoolchildren used to be taught the rule and they learned it for the most part. Now they seem not to. It's like the annoying (to me) "she gave a gift to my wife and I" grammar mistake. Again, there's a rule, it's easy, I learned it in 4th grade. But this error is heard everywhere and is even made by professional speakers and writers.

[ShortnFiery]

6. "Road to hoe" instead of the correct "row to hoe" really gets my goat.

:silly:

[ShortnFiery]

8. And while I'm at it: The overuse of the terms: "At the end of the day" ...

"Absolutely"
"That said ..."

Cease and desist! :evilgrin:

[Caoimhe]

32. It is what it is....

my new peeve

[NoSheep]

47. "To be perfectly honest..." or "I'll be honest with you..."

Oh. Really? Just this once?

[TwilightGardener]

11. My favorite for a while was "going ROUGE".

[Hekate]

33. That'd make me red in the face, LOL.

[SidDithers]

12. Depends on the poster making the error...

Sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it's hilarious.

Sid

[polmaven]

42. Then their our the times that

its hylarieous!

[lwcon]

13. No. There's another spelling error that happens alot more than the others, I think.

[subcomhd]

15. flame bait

[yesphan]

16. Around here

it's "physical year".

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. This thread is a looser.

:evilgrin:

[lillypaddle]

18. Thanks. Your welcome.

I hate that!!!

[Obamanaut]

19. "tongue and cheek" nt

[LuvNewcastle]

20. There, their, and they're mixups

Oh, and would of, should of, could of............

[EOTE]

37. During my junior year of High School...

I was visiting an acquaintance at his locker when a paper fell from it. I picked it up and I saw it was a test on the proper use of they're/there/their. It was a bunch of sentences and you had to fill in the blank with the appropriate word. I noticed that he got a 30% on the test and immediately I couldn't help thinking that a monkey picking randomly would likely have done better than he did. We were in the same grade, but he was obviously in a remedial English program. Some people just have a very hard time with words. When speaking to the guy, he didn't seem stupid, just sometimes a little slow. I hear now he's working as a coach for the UW Football Badgers.

[polmaven]

44. Oh, yes...

the would of, could of folks are really irritating.

[TheMadMonk]

21. Spelling I can live with. It's the bloody homonym abuse that really gets my goat. nt

[Ron Green]

22. "Spitting image"

Some people assume the original phrase is "spittin' image," when of course it's "spi't 'n' image," as in "spirit and image."

And, of course, "chomping at the bit."

[tabatha]

25. spitting image

Toward the end of the 19th century we find 'spit and image'. In 1895, an author called E. Castle published Lt. of Searthey, containing the line:

"She's like the poor lady that's dead and gone, the spit an' image she is."

Finally, we get to the first known use of 'spitting image' - in A. H. Rice's Mrs. Wiggs, 1901:

"He's jes' like his pa - the very spittin' image of him!"

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/spitting-image.html

[lumberjack_jeff]

23. I see that alot. n/t

[Prism]

24. Hipocracy

There are many permutations of hypocrisy, and they all drive me mad.

I do not desire to live in a country ruled by horses, no matter how benevolent their reign.

[Pool Hall Ace]

26. My irritation is nevermind. That is a title of a Nirvana album.

Oh, never mind. :eyes:

[scheming daemons]

27. Your such a looser

[CakeGrrl]

28. "Whinning". It's WHINING.

"Should of" - SHOULD HAVE

And nevermind conflating plurals with possessives.

Oh yeah..."mute point" instead of MOOT point.

[Caoimhe]

29. tounge, looser

i know a neocon who spells pelosi as palouse. WTH?

[Lilyhunter]

30. I am so , SO glad I joined DU!

I'm surrounded by like-minded purists. I love you.

One of my (many) pet peeves is "noone". "No one" should use that.

[MissMarple]

35. Apparantly, definatly not.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

36. I thought "marshall law" was the big offender.

[EOTE]

38. I love Marshall Law!!

Isn't that the new ABC comedy featuring Penny Marshall as a 60+ year old divorcee going back to law school so she can finally pass the bar as she wanted to decades ago?

[NoSheep]

45. I'm guilty of THAT one.

:blush:

[NoSheep]

46. Using IS for ARE. "There's a lot of fish in the sea." Argggghhh.

I hear it on NPR and read it here all the time.

[bulloney]

40. It's the use of apostrophes on every word that ends with the letter "S".

"Its" is used as a possessive pronoun. Too many people, however, spell it "it's".

"It's" is a contraction for "It is" or "It was".

There are numerous other instances where people put apostrophes on every word that end with an "s".

[enuegii]

41. "Phase" for "faze" gives me the howling fantods.

Funny, DU's spell checker flags "fantods". And, no, David Foster Wallace didn't invent that one... it's been around for at least a couple of hundred years.

[Zoeisright]

43. 'Your' for 'you're' really gets me.

Then there's 'seperate' instead of 'separate'.