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Subject:RE: Friday Fun: What Pet Peeve makes you puke? From:"Clare Turner" <cturner -at- redflex -dot- com> To:"Nuckols, Kenneth M" <Kenneth -dot- Nuckols -at- mybrighthouse -dot- com>, <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 21 Apr 2006 08:42:01 -0700
There are so many! Using apostrophes wrong (it's) and for plurals
(eek); using to/too/two incorrectly; there/there is another.
But if I HAD to select just one, it would be the grossly mis-used "your"
vs. "you're" - this just sends me over the edge.
Clare L. Turner
Technical Writer
Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc.
15020 N. 74th Street
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
480.607.3583
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+cturner=redflex -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+cturner=redflex -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On
Behalf Of Nuckols, Kenneth M
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 6:47 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: Friday Fun: What Pet Peeve makes you puke?
Earlier today I saw a post that contained what might have been a clever
unexpected placement of a word, or what might have been the result of
some automatic spell checker's "fix" of a typo. But outside our list
it's such a basic and common error that it makes me want to puke every
time I see it: when someone writes the word "loose" when he or she is
trying to write "lose."
Now I may be the only person who has that particular pet peeve, but as
writers I know we all have them. My question for the list is this: what
is your personal pet peeve of a misused, misspelled, or improper word
choice, and what draconian measures would you impose on the education
system to purge that error out of every grade-school student in any
English classroom?
Hands down, "loose" and "lose" is that extreme pet peeve for me. I
realize that's my personal bias and prejudice against a very common
error (an error I first started noticing in the early 90s and that just
seems rampant today). If I were in charge of the education system, that
error would result in some kind of old-fashioned detention for any kid
past the third grade that makes it--put him or her in a classroom and
make them write the definition of the words "loose" and "lose" 500 times
each--or better yet, force the parents to put a bumper sticker on their
car for the rest of the school year that reads, "My child is too stupid
to know the difference between 'loose' and 'lose,' and I'm too lazy to
correct them." Punishment for the student and public shame and
humiliation for the parents: that's the way to cleanse the human breed
of that inexcusable and irresponsible error, and to make the world a
better place.
What pet peeves do others have?
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