Doing my bit for the Red Marker blogathon

A blogger friend of mine, Ummon, pointed me towards the Red Marker Blogathon hosted by Sunayana Roy. I’m glad she did because I’m always happy to rant on about my pet peeves, most of which are to do with misused idioms and incorrectly spelt words and poor grammar.

Ok, here goes, and this is only a tiny sample because I couldn’t possibly list ‘em all at one go!

- Wich (or “witch”) when what they (any and all misspellers) mean “which”. (So what do they call those ladies with pointy hats and black flowing robes who are reputed to fly about on broomsticks? Which witch is which? deary deary me...)

- “I damn care” – for “I don’t damned well care” or “I don’t care/give a damn” .

- “Where is your native” – meaning “Where do you come from?” A lot of Indians also say "I went to my native during my trip to India", and by that they mean the village or small town where they grew up. It's an expression that I dislike intensely. How much more effort would it take to add "place" after "native" and thus make it sound better?

- “He’s always loosing his things” – for “He’s always losing his things”.

Following on from that, using “loosed” (He loosed his pajamas) instead of “loosened” (as in made looser, or less tight).

And following on from THAT, calling someone a “looser” instead of a “loser”.

- This one’s way more common than it should be, sadly – random insertion of apostrophes where not required, and NOT adding an apostrophe where it IS required. Eg 1: “Your’s” - as in “this bag is your’s”, or “Your’s sincerely”, where it should be “yours”. “Yours” is a possessive pronoun, indicating something that belongs to you. No apostrophe required.

Eg 2. “Potato’s sold here”. An apostrophe followed by the “s” usually denotes a contraction. For example. “It’s” is a contraction of “It is”, “don’t” is a contraction of “do not”. So writing “Her’s” is wrong, because “her is” makes no sense. “Hers” is, again, a possessive pronoun.

Just “expanding” the word with the apostrophe will tell you whether or not it (the apostrophe) is in the correct place. It's so simple... and yet thousands and thousands of people get it wrong!

- I come across this ALL THE TIME in food blogs. “Palette” instead of “palate”, as in “This recipe will tempt your palette”. (How, exactly?) A palette is a flat board on which an artist might mix colours while painting. A “palette” can also refer to the range of colours that the selfsame artist might have used in his finished painting. “Palate”, on the other hand, is the sense of taste in humans (sometimes refined, sometimes not), and it also refers to the roof of the mouth.

- Using “pour” where the correct usage is “pore”. "He poured over his textbook". NO! It POURS with rain. He PORES over his textbook. If he POURED (anything) over his bloody book, it would do him no good at exam time, especially in the English exam!

I’m going to stop now, because I’m beginning to froth at the mouth. But if anybody wants more, I can do it again tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. And the day after the day after that...
Just don’t tempt me.