Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Member of the "Grammer" Police With A Side of Rant About Nevaeh

I'm on a rampage today. I detest poor grammar. It drives me up a freaking wall and makes me batshit crazy. When my children use incorrect grammar, I expect it and gently correct them. When my husband uses incorrect grammar, especially repeatedly and knowingly, I seethe inside and gently correct him. If I use incorrect grammar, I have the decency to be embarrassed and I try to make sure that particular error doesn't happen again. Give me a break, my mom was an English teacher for over 20 years. If I ever got anything less than an A or B+ in English classes, even at college level, it was not a good thing.

If you're reading this, please heed:

It's grammar, not grammer.

You can LOSE a game. You can LOSE weight.
When your clothes are too big on you, they are LOOSE. When your child's tooth is wiggling, it is LOOSE.

The word is "probably." There is no such word as "prolly."

When something unexpected happens, it's "all of a sudden." "All of the sudden" makes me want to tear my hair out. If you can't remember that, it might be best to simply say "suddenly."

I before E except after C. It's a catchy little rhyme, isn't it?

Their is the exception to the above grammatical rule.

they're = They are
their = belongs to them
there're = There are; there're can be said as there with a really quick second r sound. Yes, it's the correct contraction for "there are." It's not comfortable to say it, and feels odd, but it's appropriate. Because it's rather clumsy, it's still best to use "there are."

Impact is a noun, not a verb. "Your actions have an impact on the future" is correct but "Your actions impact the future" is not correct.

Cliche and clique are not interchangable.
A cliche is a stereotyped expression or something that has become trite or overused. It is pronounced at "klee-shay."
A clique is a small, exclusive group of people, and is pronounced as "click."

If you describe something as "unique" then that means it's literally one of a kind. If you have more than one of something such as, oh say, a common name like Addeighsin, it's not unique. It's a common masculine surname used on a girl in a boring trend and it's spelled incorrectly. It's the exact opposite of unique.

Please use "seen" correctly. Please don't say "I seen that movie." You don't "seen" anything. You "saw"the movie, and when you tell someone about it, you say "I saw that movie" or "I have seen that movie."

For the love of education, please don't EVER say "I'm a haffa..." for "I'm going to have to..."

It's "may I" not "can I."
As in:"Can I borrow your radio?" "Yes you can, but no you may not."
And: "May I please borrow your radio?" "Yes, you may, but I need it back before dinner time."

"Where is all the spoons?" No, seriously, do you really not know that it should be "Where are all of the spoons?" "Where is the spoon I was using?" When you have more than one, you must change the "is" to "are." Single items use "is" while multiples of the same item use "are." Multiple items are usually discerned by the S at the end of the noun. It's not that hard.

You have a lot of popcorn. You don't have alot of popcorn. It's two separate words. When you assign something to something else or someone, you allot it.

All right is fine, alright is not. "Alright" is informal slang. "All right" is proper grammar.

Misspelt and misspelled are both correct. I don't like using misspelt, personally, and I admit to having believed it was wrong before, but it's still correct. If I happen to use it, please don't correct me.

You are = you're
It belongs to you = Your

If you would say "I" when only speaking of yourself, then you use "I" when speaking about yourself and another person. If you would say "me" when only speaking of yourself, then you use "me" when speaking about yourself and another person. Thusly, it should look like this:
ex.
~"Kim and I are going to the movies" is correct, but "Kim and me are going to the movies" will earn you a kick in the ass.
~"That pizza was meant for Kim and me!" is correct, but "That pizza was meant for Kim and I!" is not.

Personal refers to something private. Personnel refers to the staff working in a company.

You can get further in life if you apply yourself. You can throw farther than the kid next door. Abstract is further, physical is farther.

Piece refers to a portion or bit of something, perhaps an object that has broken off of something else. Peace refers to "lack of violence" and is the opposite of war.

LOL and lol are not punctuation. "I didn't know that lol!!!" is cause for stomping on your feet, if I could reach my hiking boots through the computer monitor. In most circles, LOL/lol means "laugh out loud" so please don't use it unless you are actually truly laughing out loud. If you use LOL to mean "lots of love" be aware that it's going to throw people off, especially if you post online to a response to someone who may be grieving or is discussing a serious topic.

Nevaeh has no correct grammatical pronunciation. That is a fact. The English language does not accommodate for a sound with the letter combination of "aeh." It simply can not (not cannot) be pronounced in English. The combination of "eah" gives you the sound "ee-yuh." If you change Nevaeh to Neveah then you've completely disregarded the whole purpose of Nevaeh being "it's Heaven spelled backwards." Which leads to a whole separate rant that Nevaeh is simply not a name, but just happens to be a common word with the letters rearranged backwards, that happens to appear similar to a word. Remember the Beatles and "Daed si lauP"? Yeah, well, Nevaeh doesn't even have the meaning of that backwards phrase. In other words, it means nothing. It does not mean "snow" in Hindi. It does not refer to "The Empress of Heaven, hidden and given the name Nevaeh to hide her from her evil enemies." It most certainly does not mean "butterfly" in Slavic because people, Slavic is a group of languages. Slavic is not a language in and of itself. It doesn't even mean "misty dawn of the morning" nor does it mean "pure heavenly one" in Sanskrit. Don't even get me started on the tryndeigh brain somehow deciding that Nevaeh should be spelled yooneekly as Navayah, Nevayeh, or any other misspelling of a name that isn't even a name and whose sole appeal is that "it's heaven backwards." GAH!

More than one ! is usually not neccessary. I like using lots of !!! on occasion, but rarely more than three. It's a guilty pleasure.

All caps in an entire paragraph is annoying, and should only be used for emphasis. Otherwise you're "shouting."

Whew, that felt good. I can breathe now. Which reminds me:

Breathe = 'brE[th] Use this when you need to say "I can't breathe!"
Breath = 'breth Use this when you need to say "I can't catch my breath!"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My husband is a Lose vs. Loose Nazi. He'll notice it every time, and I recently found it incorrectly used in a book of mine.

I'm sure I make Grammer (yes intentional there because I didn't know I've been spelling it wrong all this time) mistakes all the time, and the battle of the their/there/they're (well not the last one thats pretty easy to remember) is a battle I wage constantly. But its another word where I does not come before E except after C :) I'm sure their is some reason for this :)

Anonymous said...

I learnt some things today . I did not know that "there are" could be contracted into "there're"...it's something I'll never use for sure . So is "cannot" not a word? I did't know that either. Reading my blogs must drive you crazy with all of the bad grammar used in them!

♛Qu€€n♛J€§§¡¢a♛™ said...

"There're" is very awkward, so it's not usually used. "There are" is much better, and is endorsed by editors over "there're."

And yes, "cannot" is improper. It's two separate words as "can not." Obviously, "can't" is fine. ;-)

Their is the exception to the rule. PITA huh?