I will readily admit that I quite often speak like an idiot. I mess up words and have poor sentence structure. My thoughts ramble. When approaching me, just don’t make eye contact. (Then you won’t have to suffer through an awkward conversation.)
However.
HowEVER.
I live in a place where it is not at all uncommon for adults to say, “I seen him at Wal-Mart.” Under my breath I correct them ‘saw’. When children say it, I do correct them. They give me a blank stare. If I’m using the contraction for ‘have seen’ I really emphasize the ‘ve’. “I’ve seen those before.”
The other one that makes me crazy is the is/are mixup. Is is taking over, especially in contractions. Do you see that banner picture? It’s from a HuluPlus trailer for Bones. The announcer even spoke it that way. It’s not ‘There is only three episodes’, it’s ‘There ARE only three episodes’! Is is for one/singular. Are is for many/plural. I do goof this up myself, but then correct myself out loud.
As my tenuous grip on sanity starts to slip, I will be yelling these things in public. (Fortunately I will mangle the sentences and be unintelligible. “Just that crazy Mrs. Sommerer shouting again. She used to be so nice. There’s medicines she can take for that. I seen them in the Wal*mart.”)
Mark says
The big word choice burr under MY saddle is when someone types ‘loose’ when it should be ‘lose’. Good grief, even some professionals can’t seem to grasp the difference! Look them up in the dictionary, people!
Lauren says
Ha! I catch myself wondering every time I spell ‘choose’ and ‘chose’. I say them out loud to be sure I’m right.
Brad -- I didn’t know that ‘its’ was the possessive form until I was in my twenties or thirties. I think I was asleep during that lesson in high school. Thank you, Strong Bad.
Peggy says
I just love it when he says …. scalawag. Hahaha!
Brad says
My most frequently typed mistake is its and it’s. I know the difference, I make the mistake when I’m typing too fast.
Kristi says
Dangling prepositions get my gander. Where are you “at”? What time are you coming “in”? Grrrrr. People. Pay attention in grammar class. I beg you!!!
Lloyd says
When are you coming in at? *ducks*
Peggy says
I am forever struggling to come up with ‘a word’ when speaking….”Um, um, I can’t think of the word…um…” By the time I recall it, I forgot why I needed it.
And it sounds odd to me when people say Walmarts … or underwears.
I will admit to being a preposition dangler.
Curt says
I know this happens all the time. But in your example above, maybe some people confuse “is/are” when an adjective is used before the noun. Take out “only” and it sounds different. I think “only” softens the wrongness of using “is”. 🙂 I don’t know….maybe not.
At least they didn’t use Theirs.
Lauren's dad says
For decades, it has been: laying instead of lying.
More recently, and it has been approved in some fancy dictionary: “If a volunteer is off of work, they must. . . .”
bekahcubed says
I’ve resigned myself to “they” when the antecedent is singular. It’s better than reading “he or she” twenty times in a page. Then again, I still don’t quite understand what’s wrong with using “he” as a pronoun to refer to an individual of unknown gender. That’s a case of political correctness destroying grammar.
Gretchen says
I’m with you! There is a (Christian) song that has the lyric “You are I am.” I know what it means, but it bugs me.
Lauren says
Wow! It does my heart good to know that other people have their grammar buttons that get pushed. I also want to apologize to all of you, because I know I have typed all of those at one time or another. 😉