Saturday, April 26, 2008

Pet Peeves

I am a compulsive proofreader. Either I am particularly sensitive this week or everyone I encounter through the written word is an idiot.

* your interest can be piqued. Sounds like peaked but spelled differently.
*you might want to rein in your teenager, as you rein in a horse, but you don't reign in your teenager
*it's mother LODE, people. Not mother load.
*how anyone can decide the plural of tree is tree's is beyond me. Especially if they are posting about Arbor Day and free trees. The example was right there but you still felt it necessary to add an apostrophe? Once again: an apostrophe denotes possession. Argh.

Edited to add:

* your very blond haired child is a towhead, not a toehead. Seriously, wtf is a toehead? It does not sound cute or appealing.

And another one:

*you can take a deep breath, but you breathe deeply. Get it? It's that old "silent e" rule from 1st grade. The "e" turns the short vowel sound into a long one. People, please get this one through your heads.

There are more but this is what I have off the top of my head.

As always, I am at your service if you need something looked at. Email me. I beg you, don't add to the ignorance of the world.

7 comments:

  1. *toe the line, don't tow it

    *"siked" is not a word. If anything you are "psyched."

    *Chaos and capice come to us from the Greek and Italians respectively. They don't have to spell things phonetically for our benefit (eg: kaoss, capeesh). Learn to spell it right, or find an English word you can spell instead for the same effect.

    *(speaking of which) effect and affect are not at all the same.

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  2. *MOOT, not mute.

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  3. Well, now, let's not loose our heads over this. (And yes, I mean that sarcastically. That is my all-time most-hated error.)

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  4. Better a loose head than a lost one! ;)

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  6. Your and you're are my pet peeves!

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  7. I'm shure I'm guilty of some of this sometimes.

    My BFF came out from apparently reading my blog, and very hesitantly asked if I knew I was using 'Internets', and why? I said I did know and it's because it amuses me.

    He said he thought as much but some of my readers may just think I'm an idiot.

    I must say, I read this with baited breath waiting to see if I showed up.

    Thank God you 'get me'!

    And yes, it's 'bated breath'

    I just can't stop myself!

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