RE: Friday Fun: What Pet Peeve makes you puke?

Subject: RE: Friday Fun: What Pet Peeve makes you puke?
From: "Darges, Katherine" <katherine -dot- darges -at- defensegp -dot- com>
To: "Nuckols, Kenneth M" <Kenneth -dot- Nuckols -at- mybrighthouse -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2006 10:04:42 -0400

Apostrophe "s" for pluralizing! I see it in printed matter, on signs,
in official reports -- way too many places! When someone sends me a
document with something like, "The photo's below show...", I get pissy
and send back the doc annotated with a comment asking if he/she meant
more than one photo or meant the possessive.

Punishment? If they can't use an apostrophe correctly, then they can't
use it at all. Never. Not under any circumstances. Miscreants would
have to write, "...the pen of my aunt..." Knowledgeable people would
laugh at them.

Then, there is "bring" and "take", but don't get me started...

Katherine Darges
Sr. Management Analyst
National Security Programs Group

-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+katherine -dot- darges=defensegp -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+katherine -dot- darges=defensegp -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- c
om] On Behalf Of Nuckols, Kenneth M
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 9:47 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Friday Fun: What Pet Peeve makes you puke?

Earlier today I saw a post that contained what might have been a clever
unexpected placement of a word, or what might have been the result of
some automatic spell checker's "fix" of a typo. But outside our list
it's such a basic and common error that it makes me want to puke every
time I see it: when someone writes the word "loose" when he or she is
trying to write "lose."



Now I may be the only person who has that particular pet peeve, but as
writers I know we all have them. My question for the list is this: what
is your personal pet peeve of a misused, misspelled, or improper word
choice, and what draconian measures would you impose on the education
system to purge that error out of every grade-school student in any
English classroom?



Hands down, "loose" and "lose" is that extreme pet peeve for me. I
realize that's my personal bias and prejudice against a very common
error (an error I first started noticing in the early 90s and that just
seems rampant today). If I were in charge of the education system, that
error would result in some kind of old-fashioned detention for any kid
past the third grade that makes it--put him or her in a classroom and
make them write the definition of the words "loose" and "lose" 500 times
each--or better yet, force the parents to put a bumper sticker on their
car for the rest of the school year that reads, "My child is too stupid
to know the difference between 'loose' and 'lose,' and I'm too lazy to
correct them." Punishment for the student and public shame and
humiliation for the parents: that's the way to cleanse the human breed
of that inexcusable and irresponsible error, and to make the world a
better place.



What pet peeves do others have?


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