"When paying someone a compliment like "I love what you've done with the
kitchen!" you're being complimentary. A free bonus item is also a complimentary
gift. But items or people that go well with each other are complementary."
There's always learning left to be done! Words that have been twisted by popular use or nouns that have been "verb-ized" drive me crazy. There are also verbs that have been "noun-ized." Is recruitment really a word? I've noticed that in the media, the words is and are are commonly left out of stories during broadcast and although they are reporting in past tense, every verb is ended with an -ing. I suppose this is to catch us up in the heat of the (past) moment and make us think that they're really on top of things For example, "Police arresting John Doe earlier this afternoon when he ran a red light," or "President Bush beginning his last trip to Europe today."
Now as I venture into the realm of grammar, punctuation, and pronounciation (and spelling, for that matter), I fear that my own writing will not pass the test! Sometimes, I think that using proper grammar or refusing to use words that have been popularized is considered arrogant or conceited. We could all communicate so clearly if our written and spoken language adhered to the rules we learned while in school!
Visit this website to learn more about common mistakes in English.
Punctuation was drilled into us during school but many people still seem to be so confused. When I learned punctuation in school, we made lists with commas and remembered to put one before the word and. When I go to a restaurant, I order a salad, an entree, and dessert. If I say that I ordered a salad, an entree and dessert, it almost implies that the entree and dessert came on the same plate. Someone might write that he went bowling with Michael, Joseph, and Mary, but if he writes that he went bowling with Michael, Joseph and Mary, it makes me wonder if Joseph and Mary are a couple.
Now I come to the beautiful apostrophe. Oh, how I shudder when I see an attempt to make a word plural using an apostrophe. Apostrophes are to indicate posession and for making contractions! Where is the logic? If one plural word in someone's writing has an apostrophe, shouldn't ALL the plural words have an apostrophe? No! It would look ridiculous and would consume ridiculous amounts of ink. Here's the tricky part: when indicating that it owns something, we leave out the apostrophe and write its because it's means it is. When a word is already plural, you have to punctuate carefully. It is the Potters' house. It is the girls' room. This is the children's toy and that is the women's restroom.
"This morning I knew that the kid's and I were going to be at the park for
several hour's. After I did the dish's and picked up the toy's, I got out the diaper bag and packed Isaiah's diaper's, Noah's swimming trunk's, Madeleine's short's, Morgan's pant's, sandwich's, juice box's, chip's, and pacifier's. We left the bike's in the garage, remembered to lock the door's, and opened all of the window's in the van. When we got there, we saw animal's, took hike's, played on the swing's, and enjoyed the other kid's and mom's..." Can you imagine?
It is difficult to learn pronounciations simply by reading. I've never been able to decipher the pronounciation part of a dictionary definition. I'm sure that I'm quite guilty of mispronounciations often! There are many words that are mispronounced for which there is no good excuse. We don't drink eXpresso. We drink eSpresso. We don't say eXpecially; by examining the spelling, we see that it is eSpecially. Priests lay prostrate on the ground during their ordination; a prostate is a body part. We wear jewelry, not joolery. The comment below made me laugh hard enough to wake Isaiah up. Thank you, Alice!
"The grammar snob in me gets very upset when couples "cohabitate". The word is
"cohabit". Monkeys do not inhabitate the jungle and unmarried couples do not
sinfully cohabitate."
I could go on and on about careless mistakes that drive me nuts, but I'm far from perfect and hope you will finish the entry with your comments. If you bothered to read this very, very long post, please pardon my mistakes. I am still unsure of where to use which vs. that, for example.
What drives you crazy?
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