What Are Some of Your Word and Phrase Pet Peeves?

I have a few pet peeves when it comes to words and phrases people (mis)use.

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(Authors note: This exploration of grammatical pet peeves is meant to be humorous, not condescending, or judgmental).

I come by most of my snobbery via my dad. But it’s his grammar snobbery I appreciate the most, I think.

Years ago, in my 20s, driving to an appointment with him, we were listening to NPR. The anchors were discussing how many new stadiums were being built. And my dad sighed.

“What?” I asked.

He proceeded to explain that stadium is Greek in origin, and the proper plural isn’t stadiums, but stadia.

Yup. That’s my dad.

A few years later, I was covering a zoning board meeting as a reporter for Patch.com in my dad’s town. They were discussing the plans to build a new cellular tower. One big antenna.

There were objections to this. And the alternative suggested was, rather than 1 big antenna, instead raise many smaller ones to do the same thing – with less of an eyesore/potential for unproven cell tower harm.

When writing my article, I thought of my dad. And as such, recognized that the proper plural for antenna is not antennas, but rather antennae.

My dad complimented me on that.

Like my dad, over the years I’ve refined and developed my own grammar snobbery. And from that, I have found certain pet peeves that – when I come across them in the works of others – can get in the way of my enjoyment of what I’m reading.

But I also find this amusing, and worth sharing a glimpse of.

Let’s go down this rabbit hole, shall we?

Some of my word pet peeves

Certain words in especial will distress me when I find them used improperly. The most notorious?

Your and you’re

Their, there, and they’re

Both of these often throw people off. To be fair, I seldom think specifically about the proper parts of speech. But I do recognize when words are mistaken one for another – especially the above.

This one – I admit – sometimes still challenges me:

Effect and affect.

I know the difference between them (effect is generally a noun and affect a verb). But they still can be distracting. My solution often is to go with neither and instead use impact.

Cheating? Maybe. But it gets the job done without an annoying, pet peeve mistake.

Then there is the worst of them all, as far as I’m concerned:

Irregardless.

This is simply wrong. I don’t care that it’s been included in a dictionary along the way. It’s not a word.

Once upon a time, while visiting a certain relative, my sister and I both lost it when said relative dropped an irregardless into the conversation. We tried to not be condescending about this – but said relative has also been known to say Eye-talian rather than Ih-talian when discussing Italian food. But I digress.

FYI – Grammarly and spell check both dislike and reject that non-word, too.

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Troublesome phrases

Let’s look at phrases. This can get particularly obnoxious.

I came across this one recently:

All of the sudden.

*sigh* No. It’s All of a sudden. A, not the.

Another:

To all intensive purpose and For all intents and purposes.

How do people do that? The correct phrase is To all intents and purposes. For is also not correct – but at least not nearly so glaringly wrong.

Do diligence. Look closely. Do and diligence like this makes no sense. Thus, it’s due diligence.

Supposably. No, sorry, it’s supposedly. Didn’t people get past that in Elementary school?

And finally, possibly the great granddaddy of them all:

I could care less. Think about this for a moment. If you claim you can care less, that means you care. But you don’t, do you? Hence, this should be I couldn’t care less.

For a catchier and more amusing take on this topic, please listen to “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Word Crimes.

Not a word or phrase, but still worth noting

I am very fond of the Grammarly app for running edits on the things I write. It’s better than a mere spell check and catches some things easily missed.

But there are times I disagree with Grammarly. Once in a while, I think it just doesn’t understand context and mistakes plural and singular in certain contexts. FYI -0 Grammarly is, technically, an AI.

But my biggest pet peeve when it comes to Grammarly is the Oxford comma.

I get it. Technically speaking, the Oxford comma is not grammatically correct. But it’s not wrong, either. And I am a fan. Thus, as I sometimes desire to tell Grammarly, you can pry the Oxford comma from my cold, dead, and lifeless fingers.

It is easy to misuse commas. But I’d rather have more commas than fewer commas.

Oh, also, fewer not less. Important distinction there – and oh yeah, another pet peeve of mine.

A little fun with words

Some people get discouraged by all the rules of grammar. As I wrote earlier, I don’t always recall the names of the technical elements, parts of speech, and the like. I’m still a very prolific writer. And I like to think I have some skill to that end.

When all is said and done, be mindful not just of your choice of words – but the phrases that you use, too.

Last but not least – have fun with words. And never take yourself too seriously.

How are you inspired to be your own creator – whatever form that takes?

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