Comments | railise: PSA: Loose Cannons

railise

PSA: Loose Cannons

Jun 30, 2030 15:09

Lately, I keep seeing a handful of spelling and grammar errors pop up all over the internet. And, I'm not the only one noticing them; I've discussed this with people in a few different places now, but it's usually in comments on a journal entry that has little or nothing to do with the topic, and that's solving nothing. So, I figured I'd do ( Read more... )

psa, grammar and spelling

Comments 71

jagnikjen June 30 2010, 19:22:09 UTC

Thanks, Railise...a great resource.

Just a note on "past"...in one case, "I have gone past my exit." has nothing to do with a bygone era. I'm no grammar guru, so I don't know if it's considered the past tense, past participle, or past something else of "passed."

railise June 30 2010, 19:51:43 UTC

Ooo, good point; I'll have to reword that...

roh_wyn June 30 2010, 20:50:35 UTC

Also, "I finally passed that exam", lol.

railise June 30 2010, 21:15:54 UTC

Editing again! :D

roh_wyn June 30 2010, 19:32:04 UTC

Oh, good grief! I hope I'm not one of the offenders. I routinely post things to my LJ and discover some howler of a typo later. Sorry about that.

The "loose" and "lose" one mystifies me though, because I've seen a lot of really good writers (and one in particular) who make that error over and over again. Isn't that one of the ones that just jumps right off the page at you?

Also, I will always spell it "Vaysey". :D I also tend to write it as "Allan-a-Dale", but I have no idea why.

wastingyourgum June 30 2010, 19:56:57 UTC

I was watching 1x11 the other day (DVR'd from BBC HD) and turned on the credits just out of curiosity.

"Charity begins at home, Vaizey!" is what appeared - but really I think pretty much any spelling of Vaizey/Vaisey/Vasey/Vaysey is acceptable - we all know who you mean.

But "Alan" annoys me, and "Djak" really annoys me. "LeGrand" I can understand and so is only a minor irritant.

I personally usually go with "Allan A'Dale".

More generally I wish people would remember that just because every word is spelled correctly doesn't mean it's the word you want! If I see "defiantly" where "definitely" should be one more time...

railise June 30 2010, 20:04:39 UTC

I've heard that there are different spellings of "Vaizey" used in the subtitles, though I've never turned them on. Eesh!

And YES, "Alan" and "Djak" or "Djac" get on my nerves. "Legrand" is misspelled in ZombieHood, actually... I need to go through and fix that (we had "Le Grande").

GOOD POINT! And that reminds me of something to add...

roh_wyn June 30 2010, 20:05:12 UTC

I see a lot of "Djac" as well, which is understandable, but very jarring. Likewise, I find "Alan" and even "Scarlet", though nominally correct, very annoying.

More generally I wish people would remember that just because every word is spelled correctly

True. I can't tell you how many times I've typed "if" instead of "is" or "Good" instead of "Hood" (or "food", but only in the Much fics, lol!)

Thread 13

bron_v June 30 2010, 19:36:25 UTC

I'm such a hypocrite when it comes to grammar... I get so snarky when I see someone else making the mistakes you've highlighed, but then I make them myself all the time (particularly it's/its and lose/loose), unless I'm really paying attention the the words I'm putting down. I tend to only make mistakes like that when I'm typing; when I'm actually pen on paper writing I think more about how I'm writing... (spelling and grammatical errors have increased in my posts since my keyboard decided that about 5 fairly important keys aren't really required to work all the time)

I spell Vaizey differently every single day :/

subject/object... just... no single ?rule? of the English language confuses my class more than the subjective and objective. It doesn't help that no teachers even brought the idea to our attention until we were 15, and then it was in a German lesson.

good post though!
one that annoys me is You're/Your- I see it all the time (usually in facebook groups) and it drives me insane

roh_wyn June 30 2010, 19:52:03 UTC

It can't be more confusing than German, lol. I just had a discussion with someone on why you never say "Ich denke dass..." and that this is a mistake that always gives the native English speakers away.

(You're supposed to say "ich denke an..." or "ich glaube dass...", I guess).

bron_v June 30 2010, 20:20:12 UTC

German grammar is one of the main reasons I dropped it.

But the in the lesson where we did learn about the Subjective/Objective (and the Accusative and Nominative), everyone was very "well, there's another reason why English is better than German... wait, we have them too?!"

railise June 30 2010, 20:40:46 UTC

I used to diagram sentences for fun.

I don't remember a lot of that now, but the basics have stuck.

/end nerd

Thread 29

omteddy2006 June 30 2010, 20:22:12 UTC

The longer I am out of school, the worse I get. I still think I do well although sometimes I read things I've typed and think WTF? Then, I remember I typed them with a squirmy preschooler in my lap who was trying to ask me for a snack or whatever...

I know you've missed a few that bug me, but I can't think of them now. If I do, I'll let you know.

railise June 30 2010, 20:29:24 UTC

You know, my big offense is skipping words. I'll often read a comment or post I've made and find a word missing that I clearly intended to say, but it never went from my brain to my fingers, lol. I hear ya about the typing conditions, though-- I've got a six-year-old and a three-year-old running around at any given moment, so being able to form a coherent thought is a luxury. ;)

Please do!! I'd love for this to be fairly comprehensive!

shinysparks July 1 2010, 01:03:03 UTC

I know I make a lot of grammatical errors myself, and for that, I do apologize. I'm really bad about skipping words or skipping the endings of words (I usually blame my absence seizures for that.) I'm also a musical thinker and spell by sounds. Words like it's and its, definitely and definately, cemetery and cemetary sound the same, and if I don't memorize the spelling, I will screw up every time. LOL!

Re: the Sheriff's name. I've seen it spelled "Vasey" in the captions I've seen. My own last name (which is Irish in origin,) ends with -sey, so I tend to spell it that way out of habit. Also, if you look at place names in the UK and Ireland, they're usually spelled with -sey, instead of -zey.

"Vaizey" reminds me of "Daisy," and unfortunately, that leads to "Vaizey, Vaizey, give me your answer, do. I'm half-crazy over ther love of yoooou..." playing in my head. I do try to avoid that, whenever possible. LOL!

railise July 1 2010, 13:45:27 UTC

No apologies!! This really was not directed toward any of my friends, or even any one person in particular; it was spurred by seeing "loose" instead of "lose" in one too many fics, and "cannon" instead of "canon" in one too many OOC rp posts. After the conversations I'd mentioned, it just seemed stupid to be annoyed with something and do nothing. ;) But no worries at all!!

See, I'd heard that the closed-captions were different, which isn't helpful at all. I can understand wanting to avoid that, lol!!!

shinysparks July 2 2010, 07:04:12 UTC

Oh, no worries! I totally understand what you mean. It annoys me as well. :D My thing, though, is lack of punctuation. I cringe when people start typing a sentence and don't ever stop. It just goes on and on and on and on without commas or periods anywhere. Oh, and they never fail to begin that never-ending sentence with a lowercase letter, either. GAH!

Captions can be helpful, but they're not always accurate. I remember watching a baseball game back when I was a teenager with the captions on. The announcer said, "and now, the pitch." The captions read, "and now, the bitch." I literally cracked up...

Oh, and one other common mistake that I see a lot: et cetera. It's abbreviated etc., not ect.