Grammatical errors that really drive you nuts.

[Fear Fiain]

Spelling errors get me more than anything.

me to

[Vasconcelos]

me to

Loved it.

[Alenka]

Ebonics.

[kkk77]

I hate when people swap há and à, ganhaste and ganhas-te, chegamos and chegámos.

[tEhSaint]

[Svipdag]

What about the use of the objective (or accusative) case with the verb "to be" ? 'Tis told that when a royal procession was passing through a street, two shop girls were watching, and, seeing a familiar face in a car, one exclaimed "Look, look ! It's the Queen! Her friend replied "Garn, it's just Margaret." Whereupon, Her Majesty turned her head and said through the open window, "No, it's me."

Well, what the Queen says is surely the Queen's English, so, I guess that it is now permitted to use the accusative case with "to be".

[Svipdag]

I like to think that I am Mr English Language Linguist, but I have much to learn, and a quick course in copy-editing would, most likely, reveal that. I find myself writing as I would speak casually, but not all of these are grammar problems. American spellings are fine, but non-English speakers using these forms is a little upsetting.

The loss of the impersonal pronoun, using 'you' quite meaninglessly, instead of 'one', is an irritation. Most of the obvious grammar problems are very obvious, but the little subtle mistakes that slip under the radar are the sneaky ones like split infinitives.

Here, a famous example:

"To boldly go where no man has gone before."

This should be:

"To go boldly where no man has gone before."

This error has become ubiquitous. Watching the BBC can be quite funny when presenters correct each other, but they also make errors.

Member of Parliament, Dianne Abbott was on BBC Radio 4 the other day, making all sorts of horrendous pronunciation errors that made me scream in correction. She sounded like an absolute idiot!

Not sure if non-Brits will be able to watch this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p018g2mw



Grammar has stopped being taught since the 1960s, according to Nevile Gwynne. Grammar does inform thought, and bad grammar sometimes constitutes a loss of meaning, and so, it is serious.

A look of disgust spreads across my face and a supersonic squeal erupts when someone says that they want to "know where I am at" or that they "hear me". This is a step too far. There are standards, some of which vary a little between countries, but there are no excuses for the condescending management-speak slang which is now spreading like blue-green algae.

Lastly, driving into Woodbridge, I was greeted with the following text on a road sign:

Welcome to Woodbridge

An Historic Market Town

"An Historic" sounds like anhydrous, and the error originates from the writer being one who drops his 'aitches' in speech.

The use of the personal pronoun, "you" for the impersonal pronoun "one" is sometimes referred to as the "impertinent personal pronoun".

[LightHouse89]

Nothing does, I do not care as long as I can understand it.

I don't sweat the small shit.

Once I realize it irritates people I make sure I purposely do it even more

[PetiteParisienne]

I'm always shocked when people don't know the different between 'bought' and 'brought'.

[Dandelion]

"Your retarded!"
- "My retarded?"

That's a classic one.

I'm sure I probably often make mistakes though, especially in regard to prepositions. I might sometimes use the wrong one there.