This is going to seem like a random topic to bring up, and to a large extent it is, but I couldn’t care less. It was bugging me, as you all know by now, if it’s bugging me, it’ll be bugging you too. So, without further ado, don’t you just hate it when people misuse the English language? Not the complicated stuff, I’ll grant you, my grammar isn’t always perfect, but the basic stuff.
My current pet peeve, just because I’ve been hearing it a lot recently (mainly from Americans) is the misuse of the word literally. To give you an example, someone says “When such and such happened I literally felt sick”. Did you? Did you really? I didn’t see any puke anywhere. I didn’t see you collapse in a heap because you had a horrible fever or some flesh-eating disease. I wish I had though, you cretinous piece of…
Ahem, apologies, I got a little sidetracked by my rage there. Who knew there were that many feathers in my pillows? It’s just I have no idea what these people think “literally” means but clearly, whatever it is, it’s wrong. For those of you who don’t know it means “without embellishment” or “actual”. The irony in all this is that it’s often misused used to mean precisely the opposite, it is used as a form of embellishment or hyperbole.
This is a rather funny blog all about the misuse of the word “literally” so I’m not alone.
Another one is the misuse of the word irony. Seriously, it does not mean coincidence. I blame the Alanis Morisette song “Ironic” for starting this craze of misusing the word. Ed Byrne, the comedian, once famously (and correctly) said that the only thing that’s ironic about the song is that none of the things mentioned in the song are actually ironic.
Which, given the song is called “Ironic” is pretty ironic. Even more ironic is the fact that many use this as justification for why Americans don’t get irony. Alanis is Canadian, obviously, and one irony in all this is that the Canadians often look down on the Americans for being their stupid neighbours but have plenty of their own stupid people.
Although it’s rather long I can highly recommend this Guardian article about irony. It’s actually quite funny and I have to say makes some very good points. Much as I like to berate the Americans for not getting irony (and granted, a lot of Americans, particularly the less educated ones, don’t) there are plenty of Americans who do get irony.
Moving on, my last pet peeve for today is people who try and be “ultra-correct” with their grammar but actually end up being completely incorrect. One example is when people who, having been corrected when saying something like “John and me are going to the meat market” (obviously that should be “John and I”), then use it every time. You’ll hear them say something like “He’s a good friend to Jill and I”. Is he really?
Quick tip to those who don’t understand how to do that. Split the sentence into two. The first example would be “John is going to the meat martket” and “I am going to the meat market”. Therefore it’s “John and I”. The second example would be “He’s a good friend to Jill” and “He’s a good friend to me”, therefore it’s “Jill and me”. Simple really, isn’t it?
What about you, what are your pet peeves when it comes to spelling and grammar?
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