Peeves! Get'cher Peeves Here!

[gnomi]

As a follow-up to yesterday's discussion, I began to wonder what folks' grammar error pet peeves are. Here are some of mine:

-- Its/it's

-- Fewer/less

-- That/which

-- Their/they're/there

-- Your/you're

I'd love to hear other folks', if you all (or y'all) are in a mood to share.

Comments

[dpolicar]

Thinking over our conversation from this morning, I'd say mine fall in the following categories, provided in roughly descending order of peevishness:

1) Using words you don't normally use, improperly, in a failed attempt to sound smart.
"Infer/imply" is often in this category, as is "compose/comprise" (yes, I know that one is increasingly going the way of "momentarily/briefly," but I'm still holding the line on it), as are a wide range of cases of simply using words that don't mean anything the speaker might plausibly want to say. (Combining these, I once heard someone say "compromises" instead of "comprises" when they actually meant "composes." Sigh.)

2) Misusing words that are common enough that for the love of God you should have learned to use them properly by now.
"It's/its", "they're/their/there", "your/you're", and many other variations on a theme fall in this category. "That/which" doesn't, though... and yes, I realize that's a subjective line. "Fewer/less" straddles it.

3) Errors that actually change the meaning of what you're saying.

Misplaced modifiers top this list, though I sometimes cut them slack when they're funny. ("She later regretted having chased after the boy in a miniskirt.")

4) Other errors in formal/technical writing

5) Other errors in informal/casual writing

6) Other errors in speech.

7) Mispronouncing words. (Especially low on my peeve-scale is mispronouncing "pedant", which always makes me laugh and I've been known to do deliberately.)