Three More Annoyances
Some people pointed out in comments that the following two phrases were annoying. I wholeheartedly concur.
"I could care less" for "I couldn't care less." [This usage is pervasive. It just doesn't make any sense!]
"Each and every..." [A memo from the Department of Redundancy Department.]
And the latest one that has been annoying me intensely:
"blah, blah, blah... doll." [In this modern day and age, who refers to other people as dolls? Well, sadly, some people still do, and it really annoys me. Talk about an insult! I mean, think of what a doll actually is. It's a small, inanimate object, usually with grotesquely misproportioned body parts (think of Barbie dolls!), that is either collected by old ladies or used by little girls to play idiotic games like "house" or "tea time". If that is how others think of me, I should just shoot myself in the face immediately.]
Typically I don't mind when other people use these types of grammatically questionable phrases; after all, there's no end to the technical mistakes a true grammarian can discern in colloquial parlance. However, the one error that really bugs me is when people mistakenly say "less" instead of "fewer."
"There are less students, there will be less books."
"Argh!" I want to scream, "You idiot!"
Whenever I hear this mistake, I feel as if nails are scratching on some nearby blackboard and putting me in great pain until the bad grammar has ended. I'm not sure exactly why I feel this way.
Since most of us are recently out of high school and in college I would think the sheer amount of lingo and colloquialism around us would be too massive to try to maintain any sort of good grammar. My everyday speaking grammar got markedly worse upon mixing with a new set of phrases.
I will get riled up over spelling. On paper, things should be perfect. Everyone should know the difference between there/their/they're and to/too. In speech I can't afford to care, I would get too angry!
It's not about grammar, I discern, but about content. People who write things like "an idea ahead of it's time" and "your just jealous of my Gramer skils" aren't the ones attracting the ire of this group. Nor indeed are we that careful in looking at our own writing for such small mistakes as we all make.
These are semantic errors. A person mistakes thinking for feeling, says the opposite of what they mean, calls you a small silly toy, or mmistakes fluid for discrete nouns. The grammar may be proper, it's just the wrong word or phrase. I don't think that this manner of criticism falls under grammar snobbery.
By the way, I mix up your and you're in speech all time. Just listen!
Ok, here's one that I suspect many of you haven't thought much about. I say this because I notice even journalists and novelists make this mistake, which always surprises me. But once I point it out, it will likely bug you, too. It's "subconscious" vs. "unconscious." People say (or write), "I didn't mean to aim the golf ball at his head, but unconsciously I was reacting to the time he shot me with a bb gun." If you did that UNconsciously, you'd be lying comotose on the floor.
http://incompetech.com/Images/caring.png
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WALIARHHLII