My grammatical peeves

[manley1]

[begin senseless rant]

Okay, I know that I need to unclench about this one, but I keep seeing people at work writing effect instead of affect, and it's driving me batty. I know that they are virtually homophones, but it shouldn't be too, too hard to remember that almost always affect is a verb while effect is a noun. When you affect something, a

Comments

[vilasy]

Agreed on all counts!
But...nothing is worse than misuse of apostrophe's. ;)

[manley1]

Totes. I still have a huge preference for apostrophes at the ends of singular words ending with s. For instance, seeing Ross' versus Ross's always drives me batty, though everything that I have read suggests that either is acceptable, though everyone should know that the former is just dead wrong. :-)

[kev_bot]

I need to stop doing that interchangeably. I find that if it's a first name, like Chris, I add the second S, but if it's a last name, I leave it off:

Chris's face hurt.

Roger Sanders' car was in the shop.

It doesn't make sense.

[kev_bot]

OMG! Affect/effect problems FUCK MY SHIT UP! I am on board here.

Also: I have discarded my filter on correcting people re: less/fewer. I mutter it now whenever anyone fucks it up. I'm done just taking it.

However: I am okay with the "you did good" thing, to a degree, because I see it as a colloquialism. Though it's better if it's "you done good." That way it's dialect and free from deep analysis.

[manley1]

I think you'd enjoy the Grammar Girl's teachings!

[jss1113]

I caught my 7th-grade English teacher in a good/well error in class once.