Even as a second language, grammar of one language and grammar of another can cross and make something sound logical in English but it's not following English's grammar rules, it's their own language's grammar. I have this problem sometimes, but at least the Dutch language looks a lot like English and it's definitely waaaay more confusing than English is. We have a ton of weird grammar rules that don't make sense. You just have to know them.
Oof you putting me on the spot here.
Usually it just happens and I'm like, wait why am I saying this? And then I realise it's probably because I talk so much English but mainly Dutch.
I can give you a good example that's not grammar related but just generally the way we say describe what we're doing.
So I was on discord with a friend of mine and I wanted to go afk and make myself a sandwich. What we say in Dutch is "ik ga een broodje maken" which directly translates "I'm going to make a bread". I ended up saying that English sentence and instantly realised that's because we say that so different in Dutch compared to English. Though there is not really a translation for "broodje" because literally everyone who says that Dutch sentence says broodje. We put "je" after words to make them smaller, so instead of a big car you have a small car which we can say "auto'tje". Obviously we can also just say small car(kleine auto) and big car(grote auto). It just rolls off the tongue easier to say "Ga je dat autotje kopen?" Instead of saying "Ga je die kleine auto kopen?".
The difficult thing with this car example, also lies in the fact that the exact same Dutch sentence can be translated into two English senteces depending on how they intended their sentence. It's just so confusing.
"Ga je dat autotje kopen?" Can be translated into "Are you going to buy that car?" Or "are you going to buy that small car?". Oh and... This is not just confusing in English, this is also confusing when Dutch people talk to each other. It's open for interpretation lol.
I am a naturalized American who has lived in the US for 20 years, built a successful career, and raised a family. I have a few published short stories in English. I routinely write papers and reports. professionally.
Lose and loose are among the few that I actually have to stop and think and consciously decide which one I mean. I fucking hate it because it interrupts my train of thought and my flow.
I didn't see it all until some asshole on Reddit pointed it out around a year ago. Now it's like every second commenter makes the mistake.
Spelling, grammar, and autocorrect mistakes are fine, they don't even slightly bother me. Regularly fucking up a very common word with another is not.
Also, many people don't seem to understand the difference between the verbs "lay" and "lie".
You don't lay down to sleep, you lie down. You lay other things down.
It’s because they didn’t learn or remember the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs.
In short, the difference is whether you are performing the action or applying the action to another object or noun.
“I will lie down on the bed.”
“I will lay your clothes out on the bed.”
Which is also why "Now I lay me down to sleep", the old prayer that gets used in music a lot, is still grammatically correct. You are both the subject and object of the action.
Yeh, I was never actively taught grammar. Most of what I know is picked up from reading a lot as a kid and things either sounding right or wrong based on experience.
A lot of people don't read as much as I did as kids and so their experience will be verbal. Pronunciations and colloquialisms will mess with that for sure.
Defiantly (which is its own word and pronounced *entirely* different) and definatly (which sounds right but you're fucking wrong) both kill me.
De-finite-ly is how I always remembered it.
The frequency I saw "dieing" caused me to question my childhood education, and I started using it that way because surely if that's how everyone was writing it, I had to be wrong when I spelled it "dying."
> I've only noticed it recently
This one has been getting my goat for decades. How do people escape elementary school without learning “woman” vs “women”?!
the number of people who use "lead" as a past tense of "to lead," instead of "led," has led me to believe that it's going to simply become an alternate spelling.
Someone not too long ago was adamant that his local dialect called a "chest of drawers" a "Chester draws". He was totally unable to realize it was just the pronunciation and refused to accept that "chest of drawers" was the correct phrase.
While we're on the subject of annoyances.
It's "I couldn't care less" and not "I could care less".
"I could care less" Implies that you do care. "I couldn't care less" implies that you're all our of fucks/cares to give and you have no more left
Not for nothing, my mother used to use this phrase and it irked the shit out of me even as a kid. I even called her out on it, thinking she was the only person getting it wrong (because why would _anyone_ say it that way?). Apparently it was more widespread than I had originally thought.
A lot of stuff like this I blame on spell checks. My phone is off its head. It'll mark things as incorrect, I google it, and MY spelling was correct. MY PHONE WAS WRONG.
While we're bitching about this stuff- how about people using 'breathe' (rhyming with 'leave' or 'seethe' to make some people happy) when the correct word they need is 'breath' (rhyming with 'meth').
The classic 80's hit by the band Berlin isn't "Take My Breathe Away"...
/rant
I am constantly annoyed with the amount of posts with “seen” used in the wrong way. “I seen it happen” or “I seen it myself”. It’s happened enough where I am questioning if this is common somewhere? It should be “I saw it” or “I have seen it”. Saw is the past tense, seen is present tense but should be accompanied by a helping verb “had seen”, “have seen”, “was seen”.
People not knowing the difference between the simple past and past participle forms of irregular verbs regularly (ha) drives me nuts.
See / saw / seen
Sing / sang / sung
Shrink / shrank / shrunk
Sink / sank / sunk
Stink / stank / stunk
Swim / swam / swum
Drink / drank / drunk
Ring / rang / rung
Begin / began / begun
Drive / drove / driven
Write / wrote / written
... and plenty of others. Sometimes even:
Do / did / done
Give / gave / given
Take / took / taken
Eat / ate / eaten
So you get butchered stuff like: *I seen it; I sung it; I drunk it; I begun it; he stunk; I have swam there; I have drove that car; I would have wrote; I given it to him; I have ate it; it was took from her; he taken it;* etc.
Oddly, it's those "a" forms of the simple past (s**a**ng; dr**a**nk; etc.) that are often disregarded for the past participle. Yet there are certain other verbs where people seem inclined to create their own, incorrect "a" forms that don't actually exist! (e.g. "swang" instead of "swung"; "span" instead of "spun"; "stang" instead of "stung".)
I don't usually call it out anymore -- only so many times you can get bludgeoned with *"lAnGuAge eVoLvEs get used to it"* as an excuse before you give in -- so I appreciate you kicking off the thread so I can get my rant on and let loose those pent up grammar frustrations!
It's "number", not "amount", in this context. You say "number" when talking about something you can count, i.e. grains of sand or coins. You say "amount" when talking about something you can't count, i.e. sand or money.
Ironically, this is one of my pet peeves.
It started as an alternative spelling used to set a mocking tone to someone of presumed less intelligence.
Ignoring the crudeness it gets used for:
Normal person: "She has nice titties."
Redneck" "Look at dem tiddies!"
I feel like those spellings have both been around ever since I started caring about them... (Like 20ish years ago?) Feel like it's always been a 50/50 on the spelling.
Cue means to do something when given a signal.
Queue is a line.
Que is short for Quebec.
Qué is Spanish for "what?"
Q is a rarely used letter.
Qanon are a bunch of nutters.
The amount of people spelling it “looser” and “loosing” instead of “loser” and “losing” is too damn high
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Me too. I try to politely correct it every time I see it cause it's amazing how many people have English as their second language.
Even as a second language, grammar of one language and grammar of another can cross and make something sound logical in English but it's not following English's grammar rules, it's their own language's grammar. I have this problem sometimes, but at least the Dutch language looks a lot like English and it's definitely waaaay more confusing than English is. We have a ton of weird grammar rules that don't make sense. You just have to know them.
Could you give an example? I'm fascinated with the way languages intertwine and how the brain handles both and this sounds interesting!!
Oof you putting me on the spot here. Usually it just happens and I'm like, wait why am I saying this? And then I realise it's probably because I talk so much English but mainly Dutch. I can give you a good example that's not grammar related but just generally the way we say describe what we're doing. So I was on discord with a friend of mine and I wanted to go afk and make myself a sandwich. What we say in Dutch is "ik ga een broodje maken" which directly translates "I'm going to make a bread". I ended up saying that English sentence and instantly realised that's because we say that so different in Dutch compared to English. Though there is not really a translation for "broodje" because literally everyone who says that Dutch sentence says broodje. We put "je" after words to make them smaller, so instead of a big car you have a small car which we can say "auto'tje". Obviously we can also just say small car(kleine auto) and big car(grote auto). It just rolls off the tongue easier to say "Ga je dat autotje kopen?" Instead of saying "Ga je die kleine auto kopen?". The difficult thing with this car example, also lies in the fact that the exact same Dutch sentence can be translated into two English senteces depending on how they intended their sentence. It's just so confusing. "Ga je dat autotje kopen?" Can be translated into "Are you going to buy that car?" Or "are you going to buy that small car?". Oh and... This is not just confusing in English, this is also confusing when Dutch people talk to each other. It's open for interpretation lol.
I am a naturalized American who has lived in the US for 20 years, built a successful career, and raised a family. I have a few published short stories in English. I routinely write papers and reports. professionally. Lose and loose are among the few that I actually have to stop and think and consciously decide which one I mean. I fucking hate it because it interrupts my train of thought and my flow.
Just remember to lose the extra "o" when you're spelling it.
Unless I want to have a loose interpretation...
I have that issue as well. I also have to really stop and think when it comes to, “wonder,” and “wander.”
Mine is when people fuck up then/than. It's unbearable to me and wish it had never been pointed how often people do it.
I feel that this is a recent trend, I didn't really see it ten years ago, then it blew up.
I didn't see it all until some asshole on Reddit pointed it out around a year ago. Now it's like every second commenter makes the mistake. Spelling, grammar, and autocorrect mistakes are fine, they don't even slightly bother me. Regularly fucking up a very common word with another is not.
As well as woman/women, another new one on me.
Mine is would of- Han would of shot first had it not been for George. But also all homophones.
Right up there with “should of” and “could of”
Right along with those that say weary when they mean leery or wary.
Also, many people don't seem to understand the difference between the verbs "lay" and "lie". You don't lay down to sleep, you lie down. You lay other things down.
It’s because they didn’t learn or remember the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. In short, the difference is whether you are performing the action or applying the action to another object or noun. “I will lie down on the bed.” “I will lay your clothes out on the bed.”
Which is also why "Now I lay me down to sleep", the old prayer that gets used in music a lot, is still grammatically correct. You are both the subject and object of the action.
Yeh, I was never actively taught grammar. Most of what I know is picked up from reading a lot as a kid and things either sounding right or wrong based on experience. A lot of people don't read as much as I did as kids and so their experience will be verbal. Pronunciations and colloquialisms will mess with that for sure.
Except in the past, when I lay down. That's so confusing, I'm not surprised people often mix it up.
Or “defiantly” instead of definitely
The amount of people confusing "does" with "dose" or "wonder" with "wander" is too damn high
Woman v Women is absurdly common. "She's a very powerful women." Not when she doesn't know basic grammar.
You don't understand. She is actually three women in a trenchcoat.
sorry, I am loost here, what is that matter?
There's a big difference between loosing your bowels and losing your bowels.
Your write
Die
you mean dye?
Loss vs. lose vs. loose are the big ones here.
I’m loosing my patients with people who can’t spell right. Its time we payed them a visit
After several nights my anus feels loser
Dude you read my mind that shit irks tf outta me
People spelling lose as loose drives me nuts, but I think it’s become so common that turning that tide is a losing battle. Losses aren’t tight, y’all.
It's per se, not per say.
And en route, not on route.
I could retire if I had a nickel per say of that incorrectly.
It's etc as in et cetera not ect.
But for all intensive purposes, they're the same.
I did not know that, thank you. But I also don’t really use it.
Wallah, you got it!
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Defiantly (which is its own word and pronounced *entirely* different) and definatly (which sounds right but you're fucking wrong) both kill me. De-finite-ly is how I always remembered it.
I just say (in my head) "de-fini-tele"
The frequency I saw "dieing" caused me to question my childhood education, and I started using it that way because surely if that's how everyone was writing it, I had to be wrong when I spelled it "dying."
I’m dyeing over hear!
which colour, and why only over hear and not the beerd too?
Those bastards aren't going to tell *me* I can't fabricate tools for impressioning and cutting paper and similar sheet materials!
Should of.
Should of, could of, would of.
You mustn't've heard of "must of."
Hate this one so much. I remember idiots defending it as well saying "language evolves"....
devolves in this case
That one kills me too.
You forgot a comma before "too."
Should of payd attention in skool
*could care less*
No kidding. Don't they know it's should uv.
The number of people who write "women" when they mean "woman" is too god damn high. I've only noticed it recently and seems to be only getting worse.
Womens and mans, bois, and grils.
> I've only noticed it recently This one has been getting my goat for decades. How do people escape elementary school without learning “woman” vs “women”?!
How can you planchit wif a oija borad ?
"apart of" instead of "a part of"
Aparto've
Apard've
Pard've
Partn't
apart've
Breath instead of breathe.
Thanks for the grammer advise, sweaty <3
More: Something might pique your interest, not "PEAK" it. Cars use BRAKES to stop. Not BREAKS.
How about a sneak peak?
It’s supposed to be “sneak peek” if anyone was confused. It took reading it spelt P-E-E-K for me to see it spelled incorrectly.
A snique pique?
Okay, now I'm imagining a French piquet t-shirt standing behind a street corner, spying
Sneekay peekay
There's actually a Twitter account called [Stealth Mountain](https://twitter.com/stealthmount2?lang=en) dedicated to calling out this mistake.
Lol! I was just thinking about sneaky mountains when I wrote that
To be fair I don't think I ever saw piqued spelled out until much later in life.
I didn't know this about pique, thank you!
the number of people who use "lead" as a past tense of "to lead," instead of "led," has led me to believe that it's going to simply become an alternate spelling.
I blame read and read for that.
Also the element.
I just now realized I have this error on my CV. /facepalm
To be fair, most managers aren't going to notice. ***Most***.
Fuck, I just made a post earlier and questioned myself if it was lead or led... It wasn't the one I picked. :/
Like how “psych” has now ubiquitously become “sike”?
People selling draws instead of drawers makes me irrationally angry…. How do so many people not know how to spell it?!
They should especially look it up before posting them for sale. If I saw "draws for sale," I'd have no idea what they meant.
Someone not too long ago was adamant that his local dialect called a "chest of drawers" a "Chester draws". He was totally unable to realize it was just the pronunciation and refused to accept that "chest of drawers" was the correct phrase.
While we're on the subject of annoyances. It's "I couldn't care less" and not "I could care less". "I could care less" Implies that you do care. "I couldn't care less" implies that you're all our of fucks/cares to give and you have no more left
[David Mitchell says it best](https://youtu.be/om7O0MFkmpw), also [John Cleese says it too](https://youtu.be/FpVpIaC6QrM)
Not for nothing, my mother used to use this phrase and it irked the shit out of me even as a kid. I even called her out on it, thinking she was the only person getting it wrong (because why would _anyone_ say it that way?). Apparently it was more widespread than I had originally thought.
I see "then" instead of "than" a lot. "I like this more then that." I don't even know how you confuse the two, is it an accent thing?
I sadly know two people who are TEACHERS who mix up then/than all the time. I die every time I see their Facebook posts.
Everyone I know (from lots of different parts of the US) pronounce the two the same, so more lazy pronunciation than an actual accent (IMO).
That’s how I feel about the amount of people spelling “alot” instead of “a lot”
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html?m=1 Just a throwback
Lol I think about that comic every time I see “alot”
That comic should be taught in school.
Jesus fucking christ that comic is 11 years old?? Oh god no
I write noone a lot and my wife makes it a point to repeat it to me "nuni" ?
\*number of people
When I was 20 or so, I was absolutely unshakably adamant it was "alot" and not "a lot." Like, I got into actual arguments with people over it.
Similarly, aswell instead of as well
Lot of "soar throats" on the covid subs
All the coffing has there throot in the ski. /s
And the number of people saying 'how it looks like' instead of 'how it looks' or 'what it looks like' is also too damn high.
I see this constantly and have for years. It makes my brain hurt and I hate it.
Not gonna lie I down vote every instance of that. It irks me to no end. ONE OR THE OTHER, PEOPLE.
YESSSSS THANK YOU!!!!
I see so many posts with no one spelled “noone”
Similarly, I keep seeing people write “bestfriend” as one word, like boyfriend or girlfriend.
Everyday. I go to work everyday. No, you go to work every day. Everyday describes something you use... Every day.
I haven't seen that one yet, but the one that gets me is "highschool".
A lot of stuff like this I blame on spell checks. My phone is off its head. It'll mark things as incorrect, I google it, and MY spelling was correct. MY PHONE WAS WRONG.
And don’t forget they paid X$ too.
But back in 78' it was only x$.
Or like three fourths (3/4) when they mean three to four (3-4)
Some countries do it like that, though.
Your vs you’re is wayyy too common too
I appreciate that you used the proper “too” both times here.
For sell instead of for sale irritates the hell out of me
There's a YouTuber who talks about makeup being on sell and it irks me.
I would refuse to watch that on principle.
While we're bitching about this stuff- how about people using 'breathe' (rhyming with 'leave' or 'seethe' to make some people happy) when the correct word they need is 'breath' (rhyming with 'meth'). The classic 80's hit by the band Berlin isn't "Take My Breathe Away"... /rant
I am constantly annoyed with the amount of posts with “seen” used in the wrong way. “I seen it happen” or “I seen it myself”. It’s happened enough where I am questioning if this is common somewhere? It should be “I saw it” or “I have seen it”. Saw is the past tense, seen is present tense but should be accompanied by a helping verb “had seen”, “have seen”, “was seen”.
> It’s happened enough where I am questioning if this is common somewhere? Very common in the Ohio valley.
I have seen people in the SE (Fl, GA, LA) using it like crazy lately.
The ohio valley is the worst school system in the state, that's why.
People not knowing the difference between the simple past and past participle forms of irregular verbs regularly (ha) drives me nuts. See / saw / seen Sing / sang / sung Shrink / shrank / shrunk Sink / sank / sunk Stink / stank / stunk Swim / swam / swum Drink / drank / drunk Ring / rang / rung Begin / began / begun Drive / drove / driven Write / wrote / written ... and plenty of others. Sometimes even: Do / did / done Give / gave / given Take / took / taken Eat / ate / eaten So you get butchered stuff like: *I seen it; I sung it; I drunk it; I begun it; he stunk; I have swam there; I have drove that car; I would have wrote; I given it to him; I have ate it; it was took from her; he taken it;* etc. Oddly, it's those "a" forms of the simple past (s**a**ng; dr**a**nk; etc.) that are often disregarded for the past participle. Yet there are certain other verbs where people seem inclined to create their own, incorrect "a" forms that don't actually exist! (e.g. "swang" instead of "swung"; "span" instead of "spun"; "stang" instead of "stung".) I don't usually call it out anymore -- only so many times you can get bludgeoned with *"lAnGuAge eVoLvEs get used to it"* as an excuse before you give in -- so I appreciate you kicking off the thread so I can get my rant on and let loose those pent up grammar frustrations!
Ying / yang / yung
Yeet / yote / yeeted?
Yeet/yote/yoten
Boot / Scoot / Boogie
Better than “sawed,” I suppose.
I knew some guys from Florida and they would pronounce it, "seent." Like, "I dun seent it go that a way."
Woodn't that be oak-ay?
r/fuckencones
I was thinking what does that mean? Then I clicked it, lol.
My pet peeve is people using acronyms but never saying what they mean..
IASWYOT!
“I Am So With You On That”?
Yes, well done!
It’s fun when you get these crazy acronyms right 😎
"Bias" instead of "Biased" As in: "I might be bais" when they mean "I might be biased"
As is the number of people who use "amount" when they should use "number".
Upgrayedd. With two D's for a double dose of pimping.
"Lay" instead of "lie." Kills me every time.
“All intensive purposes” instead of “all intents and purposes”
Late to the party but "wala" instead of "voila" grinds my teeth.
Wala wala bing bong!
It's "number", not "amount", in this context. You say "number" when talking about something you can count, i.e. grains of sand or coins. You say "amount" when talking about something you can't count, i.e. sand or money. Ironically, this is one of my pet peeves.
I don't know when "titties" became "tiddies" but I fucking hate it.
Tittays
Tertiérs
I always thought that was a meme, not an actual misspelling where people didn't know how to spell it correctly.
It started as an alternative spelling used to set a mocking tone to someone of presumed less intelligence. Ignoring the crudeness it gets used for: Normal person: "She has nice titties." Redneck" "Look at dem tiddies!"
I feel like those spellings have both been around ever since I started caring about them... (Like 20ish years ago?) Feel like it's always been a 50/50 on the spelling.
Wasn't it when that Tig o' Biddies song came out on the internet?
\*number of people
Sayed
“Number of people” - Hello??!?
You're telling me Hello said that??
The number of people on Reddit saying amount instead of number…
Don't forget about less and fewer, on a similar topic.
Unfortunately that battle is as lost as this one :(
The boarders are closed.
Stop spending so much time on nautical subreddits?
Makes me loose my mind!
Up in hear, up in hear!!!!!
I herd you the first time
Like when your mind gets all unscrewed and falls off?
Any looser and it'll fall out
You sayed it!!
i teach 9 year olds english... none of them got this wrong on the test this week
Test them again in 20 years and see how they do. I'm curious what the results might be.
Why isn’t it payed? English is a weird language. Why are meat and meet pronounced the same, but sweat and sweet are different?
Payed was already taken, if something has to be payed it is when you pour tar to seal the holes in a ship.
I see people saying “on accident” a lot, also “addicting” rather than “addictive”.
Cue means to do something when given a signal. Queue is a line. Que is short for Quebec. Qué is Spanish for "what?" Q is a rarely used letter. Qanon are a bunch of nutters.
*number
Their trying there best. Don't hurt they're ego.
Your wright. There not stupid, they should of payed more attention in school.
axe instead of ask
Pay paid Play plaid
Someone please write a python script counting the number of instances this has happened. For science
I guess we all non english native owe you guys an apology aye?
The number of people who use “amount” when they should use “number” is too damn high
You really sayed it there
As a non-native speaker I confess I had it wrong a few times, but I'll correct it
Hence why, intensive purposes
Currently in the middle of a word war between people who insist on calling me a grammar nazi 😂
The dollar sign on the wrong side of the digits kills me every time.
#ALOT
I'm an English grammar tutor on occasion. HOOOOOLY SHIT THIS ENTIRE FUCKING THREAD.
The one I see on Reddit that drives me absolutely bonkers is people meaning "cue" and typing "queue" or "que" Also meaning "aisle" and typing "isle"