Some common departures from STANDARD ENGLISH

Jimmy Joe Joe Jimmy wrote:

How about this one ...

"I was really excited to go to the meet."

Aren't you "excited about ..." not "excited to."

Both can be correct:

"I was really excited to go to the meet." Here excited takes a complementary infinitive

I was really excited about GOING to the meet." Here excited takes a Gerund.

The way I see it, both are completely correct.

Bumping this thread because I'm seeing more and more of something that was mentioned in the OP: people writing "lead" and meaning the past tense of "to lead."

Someone who was leading in the past led--not lead.

As has been mentioned in other posts, this is one that runners should get right.

Just some observations about punctuation. I didn't get the memo when people started using double hyphens (--) instead of single ones. I frankly don't get it.

I also didn't get the memo when people started using brackets [ ] instead of parentheses ( ). I guess I just don't get memos.

Editors also seem to want you to use single quote marks in headlines instead of double ones even if the same usage in the actual text would require double quotes. You can't make this stuff up.

I also notice that people use far fewer commas than they once did.

Is "towards" even a word? Isn't "toward" sufficient?

No one seems to know when to use "that" and when to use "which" and no one seems to care much.

The k in "5k" or "10k should only be capitalized if you're talking about the title of a race, like the "Slippery Rock 5K." A plain old generic 5k should have a small "k."

A Km/km is a unit of measurement of distance

a K/k is unit measurement of temperature- see the kelvin scale

The word is "renowned" (meaning "known or talked about by many people; famous"). The word is NOT "reknown."

I recently saw this error on the IVY LEAGUE track site, and other places as well. Let's get this one right--or, maybe, just use a word like "famous"?

rodgers' and rodger's

Former Teacher wrote:

Thanks for the tips. I found out that I do spell Tendinitis incorrectly.

Don't be fooled so easily. Look'em up. Both spellings are correct, and I ain't lying.

You sound like this guy I know that no one likes.

Here's another one that I'm seeing much too frequently: "cut and dry."

No, in standard educated usage the phrase is "cut and dried."

I'm still yelling at the TV about the "tying run coming to the plate" instead of the "*potential* tying run coming to the plate" and have added the following to my in-game rants:

The use of aggressiveness instead of aggression (as in, "he plays with agressiveness"). Similarly, the use of tenaciousness instead of tenacity.

Finally, I've about given up the fight for the correct usage of "myself"; it is a first person reflexive, used when the action is *by* me and *to* me (as in, "the economy was getting so bad, I had to lay myself off" **), but I see and hear it used most often as a synonym for "me" or "I" (as in "if you're interested in signing up for grammar lessons, see either Doug or myself after the meeting").

**extra credit to those who get the specific reference cited.

Which versus that...

The book which is on the shelf is red

IS NOT equal to

The book that is on the shelf is red

These two sentences have entirely different meanings.

It is the nucleus reuniens of the thalamus not the nucleus reunions!

Capitalization matters.

I helped my Uncle Jack off his horse.

=/=

I helped my uncle jack off his horse.

Here's one that I see more and more: Two things that agree or are in alignment don't "jive," they jibe.

I'm also getting really tired of people using "out of pocket" to mean "unavailable." If you're "out of pocket" it means you've fronted some money (and, often, expect/hope to be reimbursed).

OOOOOHHHHHHH! My team lead used that the other day. I was flummoxed, but I understood her meaning. Irregardless, she should know better as she is a bit of a wannabe grammar hammer.

kibitzer wrote:

Here's one that I see more and more: Two things that agree or are in alignment don't "jive," they jibe.

I'm also getting really tired of people using "out of pocket" to mean "unavailable." If you're "out of pocket" it means you've fronted some money (and, often, expect/hope to be reimbursed).

Basketball announcers, a few seasons ago, started using the term "score the ball" as opposed to "score a basket", not sure if it's correct or incorrect or just different, but it sounds funky to me.

In addition to the "cut and dry" thing that I groused about (above), I'm getting really tired of hearing people say "upmost" when they mean "utmost."