Mar 7, 2010

English Errors

by Marsha Ward

Agent Nathan Bransford had a wonderful blog post this week about malaprop/mispronunciation/homonym errors. The comments are hilarious. Well, maybe not intentionally, but prolly because they point out errors that our so bad!

Some of the favorite, or should I say least favorite, errors the commentors see other's make in using the English language are using loose when a person means lose, choose/chose, lie/lay, their/they're/there, peeked/peaked/piqued, your/you're, and breathe/breath.

Also mentioned were the misuse of apostrophes, which drives me wild. A local sign acrost from my public library made me crazy until it was repainted due to weathering: "Condo's for lease". Condo's WHAT? Condo's bedrooms? Kitchens? Living rooms? Its enough to make a writer cry.

Note: my misuses of English in the above post are intentional. I know the difference between probably/prolly, are/our, other's/others, acrost/across, and it's/its. Really, I do!

6 comments:

  1. Haha, I don't know if I've ever actually seen "prolly" written.

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  2. I've never seen prolly either, but I thought your purposeful misuse of words was quite clever.

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  3. Yea that whole loose/lose thing drives me nuts.

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  4. Too funny, Marsha! Prolly was a first for me too. I am going to have to check out that blog post. hugs~

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  5. I'm always surprised at how many problems there are with agreement...but I have to admit I have my own problems with lie and lay. Fortunately there's always help: avoid the usage (:. (Well, yes, and one of these days I'll look it up).

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  6. As a member of the literary illuminati, I feel compelled to full disclosure on my own 20 Embarrassing Mispronunciations. See if you may share some of my burdens and "out yourself" for proper penance.

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