April 27, 2020
What are your pet peeves when it comes to grammar and spelling?
I’m sure the list will be ones you’ve all heard over and over before, but I’ll give this a shot.
- Too! Many! Exclamation! Points! Now, I’m not against the use of
exclamation points in general, but I think they need to be used sparingly. It’s like sending an email in all caps—it’s yelling. Look at me! I’m important! If you, as an author, have to use an exclamation point to show how important the sentence you wrote is, you need to rewrite the sentence. There are exceptions, of course, because they help to show what a character is feeling. But, please, please, don’t overuse the exclamation point!
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
- Apostrophes. Apostrophes can be hard. Is it it’s or its? And how about the possessive of a noun that ends in s? If you have more than one dog, and they each have a bone, is it the dogs’ bones or the dogs’s bones? Now throw in someone whose name end in ‘s’. Let’s say someone’s last names is Cookes. Is the car belonging to Mr. Cookes, Cookes’ car or Cookes’s car?
- Here’s a fun one. One or two spaces after a sentence? Old style sheets will tell you two, newer versions will say one. The truth is, back in the days when documents were typewritten, two spaces made for a cleaner look. Nowadays, that’s not true. Microsoft, in all its wisdom, has decided to flag two spaces as errors. (But it’s an option that can be turned off.)
- There, they’re, and their. It strikes me as silly that the English language has three words that sound the same but have different meanings. Especially when all the words are used frequently. Homonyms are bad enough with two words that sound alike, but three word homonyms are totally unnecessary. It’s a wonder that auto-correct ever gets them right.
- How about the word I am most likely to misspell. Awkward, isn’t it? No, that’s the word. Awkward. I always want to put a c in the first syllable. I know it doesn’t belong there, but darn, if my fingers don’t reach for that key every time I type the word awkward.
There’s my five. What did I miss? Tell me your pet peeves in the comments.
And stay safe, y’all.
April 27, 2020
What are your pet peeves when it comes to grammar and spelling?
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Ah yes, too many exclamation marks; I’d forgotten about those. Ditto the two spaces after a sentence. I still use two spaces, as it looks nicer.
I dove down the rabbit hole and read several articles on the topic. Basically, it comes down to what font you prefer. Some look better with a double space; others with a single space.
My editor says one or two exclamation points per BOOK is ample. As for the rest, I’m with you. I type teh and tehm all the time, my spellchecker ignores it, which is frustrating.
For whatever reason, I can’t type ‘the’ in text on my phone. I think I’m hitting the right letters, but I end up with weird random stuff and have to go back and correct it!
Do you prefer one or two periods? I ‘be switched to one for sure.
I use one. It is the current standard set by whoever in charge of such things.
Number 4 is a hard one. “Lay”, “lie”, “laid”, “lain” is another one.
No sh*t. Often the correct choice, like “lain” sounds so bad I’d rather be wrong. After he’d lain there for a while…yuk. Or yuk!!!!!
Exactly.
You are so right about that. I have to think really hard when I use any of them in a story, and sometimes have to resort to the internet to search for the correct usage!
I still do too, even those it was drilled into us in journalism classes. I still have my original AP Style guide and that page is one that’s dog-earned because I always approach that distinction with trepidation.
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There’s a debate among academics about ! They are ubiquitous in texts and comments. The lowly period at the end of a thank you has become the sign of a half hearted gesture. Oh. Yeah. Thank you. Texting or emailing !!!! demonstrates the level of your “yay” over cheap wine or pregnancy. The issue is that the ! is a colloquial technique reserved for interpersonal communication and is unacceptable in “traditional” writing. But we all seem to see the rascally !!!! where they don;t belong. Amateur/Memoir short stories are a breeding ground for them.
I don’t use a lot of them in my books, but when I’m writing my blog posts they creep in and I have to go back and remove them.
Oh no!!!! Why????
Here ya go. There’s a longer story behind this but here’s the one we all hate to read. https://philh52.wordpress.com/2019/04/26/writing-class-750-word-limit/
Y’all need to go read that post. It’s worth the few minutes of your time.
I love using too many exclamation points, but I keep that to casual things like texting. I did have to learn to use one space instead of two, and am working on removing the 2 from my books. But I can read a book either way since I’ve grown up with two.
I suspect it will be a long time until the two spaces concept disappears.