A lot of stupid things drive me nuts.
Okay this is probably my number one pet peeve, and one of the dumbest things to get so upset about. When people misspell “you’re” as “your” something inside me dies. I’d say it’s my inner child, but let’s face it; for as often as I see this, I would have negative inner child, so unless there are many children in me (and boy does that sound weird…like I’m a cannibal specifically for children….(Next on Law and Order SVU…)) it’s probably just my patience, but that sounds LAME.
It irritates me to the point that sometimes I can’t control myself from correcting people. My art teacher in high school wrote “your” on the board and I pointed it out which led to a distracted class and an angry teacher.
I’m not even a grammar Nazi, it’s mostly just this one issue.
One is a possessive, the other is a contraction. Your means that it belongs to you. You’re means “you are”.
Here’s an example of how to use these two words properly: I may crush your hand if you’re going to write this word incorrectly again. See? Not so hard. :)
The word “moist.” Freaks me out. I don’t have an explanation for why, other than that it sounds absolutely filthy, and I can’t even explain why it sounds so dirty. Unfortunately, people know this about me and like to use it to their advantage as far as amusing themselves.
When I was in Chicago for a few weeks, we were in a restaurant and my professor was sitting behind me and I heard this one sided conversation coming from him. “Oh, this cake is so moist! This moist cake is so delicious! This must be the moistest cake I’ve ever had!” After I stopped shuddering, I asked him why he kept saying moist. His reply? “Because it bothers you!” Funny? Yes. Mean? Also yes.
The phrase “I could care less”. People use this phrase meaning that they do not care whatsoever. The phrase should be, “I couldn’t care less.” Because as it stands, you are saying that you do care and have some care to spare.
I don’t know if this next one is grammatical or just improper wording. When people say/write “I could of” (or would of, should of…) What they really mean is “I could have” and they are taking the contraction “could’ve” and turning it into two separate words, and not the two that originated the contraction. Could of just doesn’t make any sense. What would a could or a would or a should do? Or what might it be made of?
(I have written could so many times that I am no longer convinced that it is a real word. It just doesn’t look right. Why is that L in there? It’s not pronounce cowled. Though it should be. English is a confusing language.)
“If I were you…” This, unfortunately, is the proper grammar. I asked a teacher about it, asked why it isn’t “If I was you” because I am singular and so are you. (There’s another one, why isn’t it “so is you?”) Were is supposed to be for plurals. I am singular, regardless of if I am you or me. The teacher couldn’t give me a straight answer… I got that crap answer that basically says that’s the way it is because that’s the way it is. I WANT REAL ANSWERS ABOUT THINGS THAT CONFUSE ME!
