Okay look. I am by NO means perfect when it comes to word usage, but there are some common mis-usages that occur on a regular basis in a lot of stories.
Lose-Loose
Heel-Heal
Waist-Waste
and on and on.
One that just makes me SHUDDER, is using shutter, or vice versa. One may shudder, but one CANNOT shutter unless it involves a window one is shuttering. Fear can make one shuDDer, not shuTTer. One can shuTTer a window, but cannot shuDDer it.
When I run across one of these mis-used words, it jars me out of the story sometimes.
Again I AM NOT PERFECT, and I don't expect anyone else to be. Certainly there are words that are misspelled all the time, but those words are the more difficult ones.
Okay. Rant over. Thanks for reading.
Cathy
Comments
Shutter/Shudder A pet peeve.
And the wrong word changes everything about the sentence.
May Your Light Forever Shine
My Pet Peeve
your/you're
Poor Syntax
Bike Resources
As an aspiring author
I share your frustration. My pet peeve is their/there/they're.
Perhaps it's partly due to the use of the spell-checker when, in fact, a grammar checker or a good editor should be used first.
Some might consider that a spell-checker picks up use of the wrong word when, in fact, it doesn't.
When reading an otherwise interesting story, I often convert it to MS Word and grammar check it myself. Even so, I sometimes find that, although I may have read the story several times, I still find grammatical errors that both the editor and I previously missed.
Thee are some authors in whose work I can't recall ever finding a grammar or spelling error. Just two that spring readily to mind are Megan Campbell and Karin Bishop.
S.
For what it's worth....
I have my own spelling/linguistic peeves, at the top of the list being sentences like, "The smoke was so heavy he could hardly breath...." Wrong!! "Breath" is a noun--the verb form is "breathe." You take a breath, or you breathe. It's amazing how many otherwise well-written posts and stories have that mistake.
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
Don't forget...
"He put on his cloths."
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
peeves
The error that makes me wince ... 'tow' the line.
It's TOE the line
Unless a canal barge is
Unless a canal barge is involved?
Susana
I think anyone ...
I think anyone who's ever written for public consumption and tries to make it grammatically correct shares this concern. I'm a compulsive editor. The vast majority of my reading is done by a simple cut and paste of the story into my word processor to read at my leisure. It's an old habit from my dial-up Internet days.
Since I use word with the grammar feature on, what I don't catch it does. I simply can't leave the errors, I have to fix them.
When I re-read my own stuff after being away from it for awhile, I'm horrified to see that I sometimes make the same mistakes. :o(
Hugs
Patricia
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
You just haven't ...
You just haven't seen my eye lids... When ready for bed, I shutter my eyes... *innocent whistling*
I miss words on occasion (Cloth & Clothe is one of my worst offenses)... That's why I depend on editors (yes, plural!).
Annette
Mistakes happen - I'm irked by consistent wrongness
I make mistakes, though I try to edit my own work, even email and messages. What bothers me is when someone consistently uses words incorrectly throughout a story.
I recently read what was otherwise a VERY good story, which was spoiled, for me at least, by the writer using 'then' and 'than' incorrectly. The writer and presumably the editor seemed to have NO idea that they were using 'then' and 'than' completely backwards. The icing on the cake was that there was obviously a "mistake" made where ONE time one of the two words was used correctly.
'Then' is the word that should be used following 'if' and to indicate a temporal (time) or progressional (items on a list for eg.) change. (If "a" occurs then "b" will surely happen.)(First we did ... then we did...) If/then statements are quite common in computer programming.
'Than' should be used folloing a comparative adjective. (more than, less than, sillier than, smarter than, etc.)
I do and have done some editing for people here. I - KNOW - I do not find every error but I do my best for the people I help.
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
You beat me to this one
This one really irks me. I guess because of doing programming the correct usage has been thoroughly drilled into my brain. Unfortunately the logical thinking process behind those two words completely rips me out of the story when they are used incorrectly. Unfortunately people do seem to get this one completely wrong or worse swap their meaning virtually every time the words appear in the story. Sometimes even being inconsistent in their usage from one sentence to the next.
Just to be fair, I do have my own list of my most common blunders. When I'm on a writing roll my brain seems to grab the first word that sounds 'wright' (instead of right). My list has about forty or so words on it and it grows with every story I write.
The list helps because I can find my worst word mistakes before handing it off to an editor or a proof reader. My suggestion for others would be to make a similar list for yourselves and keep updating it. Another common check I do is to take a word such as your and see if it make sense if I put in you are in its place, if you are makes sense then I should have used you're. Another one would be its and it's. Say the word its and then it is. If, it is makes sense then you should be using it's, if not then use its.
Just some ideas I hope are helpful to someone.
Hugs,
Arwen
p.s. *big sigh* I never manage to write anything without some kind of error in it. I just read this again a few hours later and found at least one error. I'm sure there are others.
Typographical errors...
They're really no big deal...
Of course, we all want to do our best, but some people have brains that are better-designed for editing than others, just as some people can hit a tennis ball, fly a kite, or cook a wonderful meal better than others can.
I wrote a blog about this once:
It's still true.
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
To my embarrassment, I found a similar mistake of my own...
...when I wrote my last blog post. It seems I misused the word "tortuous" which I confused with "torturous." "Tortuous" means winding, serpentine, difficult to get ahold of. Of course, since I was trying to describe a section of a piece of music I couldn't play, perhaps "tortuous" works. My fingers certainly felt like they were being twisted into serpentine contortions....=)
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel
Of course
Of course something can cause a window to shudder. People are more likely to say that the window rattled though.
This Effects Me Very Much
Spellcheck is useless when their are equivalents witch can be chosen. I fined this particularly at knight when eye am righting a storey,
Joanne
I ken that
I see what you did there...
Spellcheck may be useless in
Spellcheck may be useless in the case of it picking the wrong word, but at least the author took the time to do that. I shudder when read a story that is full of non-words.
My SpellCheck Doesn't Work That Way
Mine tells me which wing of which species of bat to use. As far as eye of a neut, I couldn't hold that politician down long enough to gouge it out.
Humm...So many witches.
Also, see my "Shaboom" for a version of "Hu's on First."
http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/30884/shaboom
Candidate for a Pullet Surprise
Back in 1992, Dr. Jerrold Zar of Northern Illinos University wrote a little poem (reproduced below) to highlight the failings of spelling checkers.
By his count, 123 of the 225 words are incorrect (although all words are correctly spelled).
It was published in the Journal of Irreproducible Results, January/February 1994, page 13; and reprinted ("by popular demand") in the
Journal of Irreproducible Results, Vol. 45, No. 5/6, 2000, page 20.
(And needless to say, I have it bookmarked, as well as the original of "English is a crazy language" and an analysis of the science behind the meme about the brain being able to interpret anagrams where the first and last letters are in the correct location)
CANDIDATE FOR A PULLET SURPRISE
I have a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.
Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished inn it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.
A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.
Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.
Bee fore a veiling checkers
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.
Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know faults with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.
Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped words fare as hear.
To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaws are knot aloud.
Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.
Jerry Zar, 29 June 1992
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
On fixing someone's shutters
It's been said -- and it bears repeating -- that if you're going to correct someone's typos, it's best done in a PM.
That's another one, by the way: bears/bares. You use bare for naked; everything else is bear.
Bears are always bare. They can bear anything, including their young.
language use
My posts aren't always fault free. But how many people here are native english speakers?? I for one am not and I'm trying to (at least when I have my head straight) to not make them.
Kai
I'm not native English or American speaker.
And this kind of mistakes makes everything harder to understand. Lot of us know many words only by sight and not by sound.
But for native speakers this knid of mitsaeks is difficult to ctach as peolpe tend to get the meaning of the word by first and last letters and overall length of the word. :-)
I've heard - English is easy to 'get by in' but hard to learn
English is a bit of a patois language, that is a conglomeration of bits of many languages. That makes it easy to learn to speak well enough to be understood. The problem is that to learn all the rules and even MORE important to learn all the exceptions to all the rules is VERY difficult. The spelling is basically inherited from old germanic and old French but the pronunciation of the words has sometimes shifted GREATLY from their origins. Most of the words in English that have "gh" in them, derive from German words with "ch". eg. though = doch, laugh = lach(en) daughter = Tochter, night = Nacht etc.
I won't even TRY to explain words of French origin because French is an INSANE language to begin with. I refuse to listen to any counter-argument to this when the French word for 'water' is pronounced "o" - It takes French people THREE (3) letters to write the word they pronounce as "o" (eau) and NONE of the three letters is even "o"!!!!!
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
In French...
L'eau is descended from Old French ewe, euwe, egua, ultimately from Latin aqua, so it's gotten a *bit* shorter over the years. None of *those* letters are "O" either. Our own word, "water," came by a different path, and is the same word as the Gaelic uisge, so at least they have an "e" in common. Go figure...
I personally think that l'eau is a thinly veiled reference to Jennifer Lopez, but maybe that's just me...
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
I may be 'out to lunch' here but...
I suspect the Gaelic 'uisge' is what brought much enjoyed 'whisky' into the English language.(I mean, they are both drinkables, right?) 'Water' is much more mundane, it came from the same root as the German 'Wasser'.
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
Okay the British are also a bit nuts when...
Glostersher is actualy spelled Glouchestershire and Wustersher is spelled Worcherstershire
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
Heard intresting theory about French spelling
That it was designed in time when most of population was not literate and paid money for reading and writing per letter :-) So to increase profits lot of extra letters were added to the words. Also to make it harder to learn to read and write in many cases they obscured actual sound.
:-)
As for learning English... about now it is almost exactly 20 years since I had "eureca!" moment and invented my own method to learn English and learned English :-) Problem is - it does not work for lots of people. And I still have problem that I almost never use "a" and "the" - they are just too foreign for me :-)
That theory of French actually makes sense.
Scribes were usually poorly paid, at best they got work for some lordling or the church. If they began adding letters to each word, to obscure their craft, and other scribes caught onto the idea, it wouldn't have taken too long before the language became quite complex.
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
Being a Litteralist...
What is a pet peeve? Holly and I have a pair of pet cats (not two pair dat would make fore!) Humm... "To be or not to be that is the question. Or is it 2B or not 2B which one will I ring? Now I'll go off to do something else.
A horse has six legs.
Two hind legs and four legs :-) (very old joke)
Slightly different, but in the same 'vain'
"Ode to the Spell Checker!" - Rated PG
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
Cathy
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
Spell checkers
I feel more or less the same way. And I suspect part of this is due to the widespread use of spell checkers, somethimes made even more dangerous by autocompletion (a feature that tries to guess what you are trying to type after just a few characters). And this can be seen not just here, I have seen it in books widely published and read, and in periodicals which suohld be more careful.
Acn I imagina any solution? Not really; we all would need much more leisure AND awareness. And good eyesight; sometimes I read and re-read what I have written, and still I end with some striking horrors.
English is my sixth national language; one I love, and language I used to interact with my children (they were learning it around the same time I was learning it myself, not too many years ago). I feel quite comfortable with it, but it is still quite foreign to me. And I speak it with a foreign accent that I suspect I will keep until I die (hopefully of old age) much though I would love to leave it behind.
Ana
you forgot
then than
to too
there their
here hear
synonyms etc
they drive me crazy. That kind of stuff was beaten into me by the nuns when I was in grade school. Nowadays, the kids are taught so much other stuff, this topic is glossed over. Spelling gets the same treatment. And, I keep hearing that due to word processers, many schools want to toss penmanship and skip teaching cursive. When I run into these problems in a story, I just pass it with quiet thoughts on the dumbing down of America. If it is in a story I intend to "keep" and save off to re-read, I quietly correct it and go on, as annoying as it may be. Even the best writers can get a word crossed or out of place in a sentence as they are writing, as they do the writing and remove words or phrases they re-word or change. As they read it over, their eyes see what they meant to say, not what is actually there, so I just go with it. Telling someone they are poor at spelling, or grammer is poor taste, and they are probably aware of it. If it is glaring, I MIGHT mention it in a note in private, so it can be edited so it looks as perfect as it should be in a perfect story. I might even send an edited copy to save them time, if there are several mistakes. Otherwise, I just go on. I just think of the future and how we rely of spellcheck and grammar check in a program that cannot know it all, since they are just based on what the programmer puts in, and they went to the same schools.
thanks
thank you to all who wrote about catherine linda michels blog. i often wondered if others saw these errors. i know a lot of them come from the idioms of british to american english. if the others are what our education system is turning out, heaven help us.
robert
I can't talk
We all know I mess up a lot of words, but the thing that drives me up a wall is that damn text speak and the kids who use it all the time. Or when they are talking. I swear, "I lol'd" should be a crime punishable by death by hamster trampling
Hmmm
The wild storm was causing the windows to shudder, so I shuttered myself in tightly.
How was that?
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
I respect rulebreaking/rulebending by those who KNOW the rules
When someone KNOWS the rules they can bend/break them in ways that enhance their work. This may be for shock effect or to emphasize the text.
Pablo Picaso produced paintings that were next to photograghically perfect before he began to experiment with impressionism. Arnold Schoenberg trained many years in classical music before he devepoled the twelve tone system. Many others later 'jumped on the band wagon' of these two pioneers, using their techiques without understanding the 'why' or 'how' of what they were doing. Some had sucess but others fell flat because there was no depth to their work.
I can not think of ANY discipline where one can become great without learning the basics.
with love,
HER
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
Letter poifekt!
The wild storm was causing the windows to shudder, so I shuttered myself in tightly.
How was that?
—
with love,
Hope
Thank you.
Cathy
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
One I forgot....
Few things Are as Grating to me as Random capitalization. Unless you're Trying to Approximate the look of an Eighteenth century Document (or quote from Same) it Can be really Annoying.
Livin' A Ragtime Life,
Rachel