Sunday, September 26, 2010

Pet Peeves..

The fact that you reek wreaks havoc with my olfactory senses.

Despite the rain, I will give you free rein to reign over the kingdom.

I will run you over with a tow truck if you do not toe the party line.

It's one thing to see these mix-ups on the intertubes, but in the era of the HAL 9000-model spell checker doing double duty as an "editor", they have crept into print media, too, and this just frickin' appalls me.

Now having vented, I feel much better, thank you. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

24 comments:

  1. You're killing me with your spelling errors. It's funny how your computer isn't used for its spell checking ability.

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  2. Careful, Tam. Don't loose your kewl. Next thing ya know you'll be all worrified over its and it's.

    Art

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  3. Sigh. I'll never live down the "Bury The Lead" debacle of 2008. :(

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  4. The product of modern education and text messaging. They don't know, don't care and are too lazy to learn. I'm once again facing about 100 recent high school graduates who supposedly are in my college government courses. Tasked with writing 500 word papers, they display inability to distinguish "to, too, two", "there, their, they/re" "are, our", "whether, weather" and more.

    My favorite though is the verb "to run" when applied as "how the government is ran."

    The Endarkenment proceeds apace.

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  5. You're gonna blow a gasket if you don't vent your peeves! Ahhh...better now. AT

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  6. The only thing that makes me loose it faster is when someone's interest is peaked.

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  7. "It's one thing to see these mix-ups on the intertubes"

    What mix-ups? It looks like reek, wreak, rain, rein, reign, tow, and toe, were all used correctly there.

    Am I missing something in there, or is this intended to be the only page with that many homonyms used correctly?

    Having grown up with horses, another of my peeves is "chomping at the bit". It's "champing", not "chomping".

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  8. Laughingdog,

    Well, yes, I was intending to display them in their natural habitat, as it were. :o

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  9. There, there, Tam. We can forgive their mistakes, right? It's not like they're doing it on purpose...

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  10. I'm with General Jackson on this, "It takes a damn poor mind not to conceive of more than one way to spell a word." (On other matters, not so much!)

    But the ones that gripe me are affect for effect; affection for affectation; and the other synonyms the class of '50 learned in '40.

    Stranger

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  11. Eye think ewe reed two much in too things.

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  12. I think you need to loose ur hi n mighty opinion. To many spellings of words that sound the same is duplicitous and ramshacks the English language.

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  13. My pet peeve has already occurred twice in the comments.

    loose ≠ lose

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  14. > The product of modern education and text messaging.

    Long before we had text messaging, George Orwell wrote:

    Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line. Another example is the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.

    "Politics and the English Language" (1946).

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  15. So as to peeves, would you say...

    you're showing your prejudice,

    or is this post just...

    your showing you're prejudiced?

    AT

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  16. Tam,

    I was a little worried when I read that. My Grandmother was an English teacher, but I work as an engineer. When it all looked correct, I was worried that my profession had finally undone my Grandmother's best efforts.

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  17. http://pauillac.inria.fr/~xleroy/stuff/english-pronunciation.html

    A poem for the bravest pronunciator.

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  18. Our relationship will be ravaged if you ravish me.

    True story #1: I once argued with someone who insisted it was "tow the line", from canal boat slang. He finally came around.

    True story #2: My mother insists "pique" is pronounced "pee-cue". She has a Master's in English. She shows no signs of coming around.

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  19. Joanna,

    "True story #2: My mother insists "pique" is pronounced "pee-cue". She has a Master's in English."

    This makes me sad. :(

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  20. Interesting Topic. How does one weigh the way the English Language tells us how to weigh the weight of whey?

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  21. My personal favourite: Counter monkeys in coffee shops who ask if I'd like my coffee beans grounded.

    I always wonder if they carry a significant potential that must be relieved before I may have them.

    Jim

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  22. How does one weigh the way the English Language tells us how to weigh the weight of whey?

    Now you're crossing the line into puns, and there be dragons thar.

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