Ask Lemmy

None. Prescriptivism isn't how the world actually works.

I do wonder what the second "is" in "the thing is, is that" means. Presumably, there's a logical answer for the speakers.

When people formulate questions as statements, because it throws me out of my reading flow ha ing to correct my inner voice.

“Then” when it should be “than”.

People starting sentences with “I mean”, and no prior context.

I actually came across one of mine in this thread where someone was talking about an unrelated one of theirs: The plural of a word that ends with "st" is "sts", not also "st". If you write it like that because that's how you say it, it's because you're also saying it wrong.

'Who' Vs 'whom'.

Answer the question with 'he' Vs 'him' and match the 'm's is an easy rule of thumb.

He went to the park: who went to the park?

You called him: Whom did you call?

I understand why it's falling out of usage, as the strong SVO eliminates the need for accusatives, I wouldn't be surprised if 'him' and 'her' go away next. Knowing and using 'whom' sure helped me with the '-n' affix when learning Esperanto though, also fuck '-n' signed: English speakers. Replace the word with whom, him or her and if it's clumsy you don't need the -n.

Now, if I could just wrap my head around 'si' Vs 'li', 'ŝi' and 'ri'. Or, a solid rule of thumb, that would be so nice. I promise I'm not a toddler, I just talk like one.

🎵Whom ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!!!🎵

I'm sorry

You do something ON purpose or BY accident, you don't do anything ON accident!

Whilst

Some of mine in no particular order:

• Comma splices.
• Using apostrophes to make abbreviations plural. It's UFOs, not UFO's. This goes for decades, too. It's 1920s, not 1920's.
• Putting punctuation in the wrong place when parentheticals are involved (like this.) (Or like this).
• Same for quotations. Programmers in particular seem averse to putting punctuation on the inside where it usually belongs.
• Mixing up insure, ensure, and assure.
• Using 'that' where 'who' is more appropriate. For example, "People that don't use their blinkers are annoying."

"What" and "which" being used interchangeably.

People who use "can" to mean either "can" OR "can't" and expect you to work out what they mean from context.

I absolutely detest the practice of saying the "the proper nouns of the world," i.e the Tom Brady's of the world. Or the Empire State buildings of the world. First off, it's a proper noun. The implication of a proper noun is there is only one specific instance. Second, that's diminishing to the proper noun used by lowering that status to the mean. Last, it's usually used in a sports context to unnecessarily group up a bunch of players even though we already know the context of why they're being grouped up for comparison. It's just fucking dumb. It really grinds my gears.

I get hung up on i.e. vs e.g. I'm not sure this counts as grammar though... I also understand the meaning is not very known so many people confuse the two but I wish it was overall well understood so that the message is very clear.

E.g. is used when enumerating examples, it doesn't have to include all possibilities. Like saying "for example..."

I.e. is to demonstrate exactly what we are talking about. It's like saying "by that I mean this".

This cafe

I mean I try not to be a dick about spelling and grammar and stuff these days, but come on!