grammar pet peeves

• lose vs loose
  He loosed the hounds, so as not to lose the fox.
  His saddle was loose, he better not lose his grip.
  If you need another mnemonic, think 'lose' has lost another 'o'.

• it's vs its
  The car had a dent in its hood. It's a good thing the engine still ran.
  She tries its radio, but it's too far from town.
  No possessive pronoun uses an apostrophe: His, Her, Its, Your, Their, Our.

• there vs their vs they're
  They're going to take their dogs to the park down there.
  There was the writeup; they're writing about their peeves.
  Think (t here), (their), (they'are).

• your vs you're
  You're likely to break your leg with that stunt.
  You're gracious to lend me your jacket.
  Again, no possessive pronoun has an apostrophe. Think (you'are).

• then vs than
  She went to the store, then to the carwash. It was hotter than Hades at the sauna.
  Funny thing, programmers never spell if-then wrong, but many don't know that than is a word.

• affect vs effect
  His speech affected the audience, and effected discussion in the legislature.
  She turned the knob without knowing what it would affect; she decided she liked the new effect.
  To 'affect' something is to change it somehow. An 'effect' is indirect: the results of a change.

• irony vs juxtaposition
  It was ironic that Ted Kaczinski was so against technology, but was only found when his manifesto was published on the Internet.
  It was a coincidence that it was Ted Kaczinski's own brother who turned him in.
  The word 'irony' implies unexpected opposites; two things together that make you go 'hmm' is just a meaningful juxtaposition.

• begs the question vs raises the question
  The phrase begs the question means that you've answered some question with something that also needs to be answered.

• would of vs would have
  She would have fixed the dent, but that would have cost her a lot of money.
  The word 'of' is a preposition. Prepositions don't go in front of verbs.

• "Payed" vs paid

• "Lead" as the past tense of "to lead", as in "yesterday, i lead them astray". This should of course be "led", though not as in Zeppelin.

• Your and you're: Correct usage is "you're peeing on your shoes". "You're" is a contraction of "you are"; "your" is just a common or garden variety possessive pronoun, and as above, no possessive pronoun uses an apostrophe. The apostrophe represents something which has been removed, in this case the 'a' in "are", much like the missing 'i' from "is" in "it's".

• Drifting off into spelling, "definately" for "definitely" always drives me into a paroxysm of loathing.

• Another capital "supposedly" crime is "supposingly".

• "They" is not singular. Trust me on this one.

• "Weird" is weird in that an 'e' precedes an 'i' without a leading 'c'.

• "People that..." is goofy unless you're deliberately trying to write like a pothead for comic effect; we prefer "people who". People are people, not things. (dannye's peeve, but also mine)

• "-ant" used for "-ent", which I suppose is spelling more than grammar. Either way, take care with "sentence", "existence", "tendency", and a few others. "Dependent" vs "dependant": 'A' for adjective, 'e' for noun. (dannye's peeve, but also mine)

Innit is a contraction of "isn't it?", and as such its use should be restricted to "That's cool, innit?" or "That dog is blue, innit?", and never "He's cool, innit?", or "That man is blue, innit?". Its increasing use as a general afirmative is bad too. I've recently seen a play entitled "Don't Look At My Sister, Innit" advertised. Shudder. I know innit is slang, but it drives me up the wall when it's used unsuitably. Some would argue that it's an acceptable substitute for the French "N'est-ce pas?" or Japanese "Ne-"; but I wouldn't.

Also, I don't like it when folks "try and" do something. Shouldn't that be "try to" in most cases?

Everyone should speak proper like what I do.

Example: I had this English teacher who claimed that when you compare things you must always use the word "other." Like "The Ford Excursion is bigger than all other cars." So I asked her if the following example "New York is bigger than all the cities in Amsterdam." So she insisted that you need to say "New York is bigger than all the other cities in Holland." I persisted and pointed out that that sentence implies that New York is in Amsterdam. So she said you must say "New York, which is in the U.S., is bigger than all the other cities in Amsterdam." if you want to avoid confusion about where New York is. Clearly this woman is off her rocker. Logic tells me that the only time you need to use the word "other" is when the thing you're comparing is part of the set it's being compared to. This is because something cannot be bigger/better/smarter than itself. Example: "The Ford Excursion is bigger than all cars" is grammatically flawed because the Ford Excursion is a car and cannot be bigger than itself. Unfortunately, my English teacher is still listening to whatever the teacher's manual tells her, so that point is lost on her.

Will Smith, supposedly is also really nutty about grammar. He has said this himself. Well I noticed that he misused the rule about putting "an", instead of "a", before a word that starts with a vowel. In his song Just the Two of Us theres a part that he says "or even a M.C." The trouble is that although "M.C. starts with a consonant, its pronounced with a vowel: "emcee." That rule of grammar exists only to avoid awkwardness in verbalization. Will Smith took it too literally and thought he was being clever.

To the above list I add whose vs who's
"Whose shoes did I trip over in the hallway and who's going to pick them up?"
The first is the possessive, the second the contraction of "who is".

literally
as in: "He literally laughed his head off."
No, he bloody didn't! Or if he did, he must be the first person in history whose head was rolling on the floor detached from his body after a joke -- without some outside intervention.

With regard to they, them and their used as a gender-neutral singular pronoun, the matter does have historical literary precedent -- Jane Austen certainly used the convention. It seems acceptable to me, especially now, when, with the increasing use of gender-neutral nicknames, to presuppose a gender could be misleading, but to use 'it' is blatantly incorrect. S/he, him/her, his/hers is cumbersome, and sie, hir, and kir contrived and artificial. "They" is, if not perfect, certainly the least troublesome way to indicate that the person being referred to is of an unknown gender.

• Who vs whom - Yes, this is picky, but, strictly speaking: "The man to whom I was speaking" should be used instead of "The man who I was speaking to".
• "James and I went to the shops" is much, much better than "James and me went to the shops".
• "Aswell"
• "Awhile" used incorrectly: it means 'for a short time', so should never be preceded by a preposition. If you want a preposition before it, you have to use the two-word form 'a while'. Conversely, "stay a while" is incorrect¹, while "stay for a while" and "stay awhile" are correct.
• 'That' being used as a relative pronoun when 'which' is much better. Microsoft's grammar checkers suggest this because it makes things more readable.
• 'Grammer' - yes it's a spelling mistake, but it's appropriate, don't you think?

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1. TenMinJoe and dictionary.com think this is correct. Looking at it again, they might be right.

These sentences clearly express different verbal moods, and people do recognize a difference, but most of the time, when people want to express the second sentence, they say
"If I was healthy, I would climb Mt. Everest.

rrrr. The simple past tense active or passive voice subjunctive of the verb to be is WERE.
For all other verbs the simple past tense active or passive voice subjunctive is the same as the indicative, as in
"If he ran, he would get there on time.

Ok... but this is only the beginning.

How about this:
"He is here"
versus
"It is essential that he be here."

These sentences are simple present tense, and the latter is, of course the subjunctive form, and people recognize that. The simple present tense active or passive voice subjunctive is just the infinitive stem of the verb. But people will also say things like:

"It is essential that he runs all the way"

If you put the verb to be in the subjunctive, why don't you realize the need to do it with other verbs? The last sentence should be:
"It is essential that he run all the way"

Enough of this selective proper subjunctiving!

Subject pronouns:
I
You
He/She/It
We
You
They

Object pronouns:
Me
You
Him/Her/It
Us
You
Them