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I generally forgive conversational errors, but what I simply cannot stand is grammatical errors made in an academic lecture or on a non-fiction television program, such as the news or a documentary. It doesn't matter if it's a double negative, an incorrect contraction, or simply a hesitantly pronounced word - if the individual speaking is presenting his/her words as educated theory or fact, he should be able to do so in an educated manner.
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First of all, mistakes by amateurs don't annoy me at all. In fact I'm more annoyed by pedants that don't appreciate that the Enlgish language is always evolving, and there aren't absolute rules, and never were.
For example, in some of the answers to this question, people have mixed up spelling and grammar. But that doesn't bother me at all.
What does annoy me is when professionals, like journalists, misuse the language. One example that often occurs with the BBC is over use of quotation marks.
For example this one:
CCTV 'shows Lahore gunmen escape'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7924550.stm
They're not quoting anyone. They just put things in quotation marks all the time as a get out so if the story turns out to be rubbish it's not their responsibility.
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viridicus
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| March 04, 2009 08:51 PM |
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March 04, 2009 08:09 PM
If by peeves, you mean mistakes that annoy me... First of all, mistakes by amateurs don't annoy me at all. In fact I'm more annoyed by pedants that don't appreciate that the Enlgish language is always evolving, and there aren't absolute rules, and never were.
For example, in some of the answers to this question, people have mixed up spelling and grammar. But that doesn't bother me at all.
What does annoy me is when professionals, like journalists, misuse the language. One example that often occurs with the BBC is over use of quotation marks.
For example this one:
CCTV 'shows Lahore gunmen escape'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7924550.stm
They're not quoting anyone. They just put things in quotation marks all the time as a get out so if the story turns out to be rubbish it's not their responsibility.
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viridicus
March 04, 2009 08:56 PM
I love that language is constantly evolving - after all, English has adapted words and elements from various cultures during its growth. Yet, it still grates my nerves every time I read a writer's use of "they" in an effort to avoid the politically incorrect use of only "he" or "she". It's become so mainstream that in writing my response to this question, I nearly wrote "if the individual speaking is presenting their words". Ugh.
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