Saturday, December 29, 2007

Loose vs Lose and other grammer mistakes that bug me.

So we all know I've been visited by the Grammar Nazi on my quickness to type it's when I mean its. And although said grammar nazi made me second guess my knowledge, turns out I knew what I was doing, just made some typos. But, I'm also a grammar nazi in some respects. The difference is I won't correct a total stranger. I will, however, tell a friend so she won't keep embarrassing herself, but a stranger? Nah.

Anywho - the one grammar thing that is driving me bonkers lately is "loose" and "lose". I have seen dozens of people using this wrong lately.

"I need to loose weight." You do? Is your weight too tight, then my all means loosen it up!

"This dress is just too lose on me." Wow, you better not wear it so it nothing gets lost!

Okay, the latter rarely happens, but it sounded funny. The big one is using "loose" (meaning something is too baggy, the opposite of tight, or even a slutty person.) for the word "lose" (to come to be without, to suffer the deprivation of, etc). I have included the links to each of the definitions because as I was shocked to see 37 different definitions of "loose", none of which, by the way, meaning "lose". My favorite was the 8th definition of loose: "lax. as the bowels."

And while we're at it, if everyone could remember there are no such words as "irregardless", "supposebly" or "dialation" (it's dilation), that'd be great. Okay, okay, irregardless is a word, it's just a redundant word that is often mistakenly *believe to be the correct usage. Take off the "ir" and it's still regardless. There's just no need to add on "ir". In fact, by adding on the "ir", it makes it a double negative with "less", creating the opposite: regard. You can read all about it here if interested in learning more.

Another funny mistake is when I see someone trying to use the phrase "for all intents and purposes". I can't tell you how many times I've heard "for all intensive purposes" instead. This one makes me laugh each time.

So those are my lessons for today. But by all means, I'm am NOT the grammar queen! I am conscious about many grammar mistakes I make everyday (hello? How many parenthetical comments can I make?) and I know I put way too many word in "quotes". I'm also probably unconscious of copious other mistakes. I'm not sure how okay it is to start sentences with "and" and "but". I remember an English lesson where we spoke to it and we were allowed, but I do it all the time. I also start and end sentences with adverbs and I couldn't even begin to tell you which one (or both) was incorrect.

The point is, I've got my annoyance points and these are them. We all have them, what are yours???

* I learned something new today. I had thought the phrase "believe to be" was "believed to be", but in reading the blurb about the mistaken use of "irregardless", I saw I was wrong.

21 comments:

CanadianMama said...

I make grammer and spelling mistakes all the time so I really should not call out others but I'm going to anyways.
My big frustration is people not using there/their right (I actually had a friend send out her kids party invitation saying "join us while we celebrate there birthday) and the whole your/you're thing. I see it all the time especially on the internet. Not sure if it's people being lazy or ignorance but I makes me crazy.

Natalie said...

Loose vs lose is one of my biggest peeves.

And yea, my clinic puts me "on hold" to let my ovaries recover so I'll be March-ish - I'm glad someone will be around the same time as me:-)

Anonymous said...

My mother always says "Nothing for nothing" instead of "Not for nothing".....it is like nails on a chalkboard everytime I hear it! Aaahhh!
Heather

Anonymous said...

their & there & they're

I hate when people confuse those!

Jen said...

its and it's is another one that irritates me.

Oh and I'm working on the pill swallowing technique. Last night one letrozole pill came flying out of my mouth for some strange reason. I ended up on my belly searching for the pill since its so small and blends in with my floor! Anyhow, I'm going to get this down. Maybe I'll practice with the prenatals instead though.

Anonymous said...

Irregardless drives me NUTS!!! I actually corrected my old boss one time when she said it. (This was almost 10 years ago and www.dictionary.com stated it was "slang", not proper.) I truly thought she would want to sound more professional. I actually got "laid off" shortly thereafter.

KatieM said...

Don't forget "advice" and "advise"....I see that all the time! Oh, and my ex used to say it's "pouring down the rain" instead of it's "pouring down rain". I'm not exactly sure which is right but adding the "the" in there drives me nuts! haha

Anonymous said...

My best friend says it's not my "prioritive" all of the time it's hilarious. But this post made me nervous cause my grammar and spelling are fucked. Your stuck with me posting though until you block me ;)

Anonymous said...

I've heard that lots of these are the result of people not reading that much anymore (at least not edited/proofread formally published stuff) so they don't recognize mistakes when they see them and they're reduced to writing things like they sound or like they think they've heard. That doesn't account for people confusing "loose" and "lose" though, so I think that sometimes people do that just to drive some of us crazy. That's just evil and they should be punished. It's like teasing a chained dog just because you can get away with it.

Over the last year, I've noticed my first draft of almost everything has lots of phonetically correct but wrong word incidents, which spell checkers don't catch (to vs too, hear vs here, there vs their, etc). I'm a little surprised that grammar checkers are not as available as spell checkers after all these years. I used to be an excellent and confident speller but not so much any more. Worse, I find that I look up the same words over and over and getting the correct spelling or usage doesn't stick. I'm writing this on my PDA (too lame to go to my PC) so I'm just going with "surprised", instead of making sure it's not "suprised" or "surprized". If I think it matters, I'll avoid a word altogether instead of risking getting it wrong but I'm also getting better at letting go of needing to look good when it shouldn't matter, like text messaging.

Maybe all I'm saying is give peas a chance.

Anonymous said...

I can't stand how so many people spell definitely wrong. I see "definatly" or "definately" all the time. I actually know of someone who minored in English (supposedly) and she always spells it with an "a". It is so annoying!

My MIL drives me nuts. She always says she was "over to" someplace. An example would be, "I was over to church the other day". No, you were at church or even you went to church.

When people say "would of" it's wrong. It is supposed to be "would have". Coming back to supposed, I hate when people say "suppose to be" (wrong).

Another one that a lot of people are not aware of is "I could care less". It really should be "I couldn't care less" because then you're actually saying that you really don't care. If you're saying the former, you're actually saying that you do care. This was one that my high school English teacher brought up.

The most common errors; though, continue to be people confusing "their", "they're", and "there". Another is "your" and "you're" (this one drives me nuts and I've received invites to birthday parties that say "your invited"--what of mine is invited?).

Loralee Choate said...

I'm such a looser at grammer.

Got two pet peeves in one with that! Cool.

I hate when I'm typing quickly and commit the mistakes that bother me the most. However, I also don't spend a ton of time editing. I would drive myself batty and blogging would lose a lot of its appeal.

Love the post.

Anonymous said...

Some spelling is so rediculous.



Kidding! I know it's ridiculous now, and I haven't spelled it the other way since you told me I was making a mistake, so thanks!!! Spelling has always been a thing with me too and I always try to spell things correctly, but sometimes, I get caught up in my New England accent and it comes out in my spelling, LOL.

Anonymous said...

Okay, I am a notorious ~type and send~ kind of girl, completely forgetting to spell check, BUT...

Affect ('Your words affected me deeply.') and effect ('Random acts of kindness effect the people around you.')... Even I get it wrong at times but I am really careful to make sure I get it correct.

My favorite peeve – learnt and spellt. I am not sure if they are actual words in other countries (like colour) but I HATE learnt all most as much as "That book is mines." (We have a 15 yr old who works with us... enough said.)

Anonymous said...

OMG... How much of a dork am I?

"...all most as much as..." I couldn't have demonstrated your point clearer. How embarrassing!

Almost, almost, almost. Sorry. :o)

Birdee said...

Well, I've had my English lesson for the day, now I'll be more prepared when I start class (lol).
I have to admit, I've never really had a peeve when it comes to grammar, I guess probably because I'm the worst at it. I'm very self conscious about my grammar, I spell check almost everything so it’s really embarrassing when I don’t or if I do, I still get my spelling or grammar wrong. But I give my self a break, I realize people have peeves but they still like me so that’s good.
I think as far as talking though, I laugh when I hear people say "wader" instead of "water", or "nuther" instead of "another", But out of the humor I find in it, I'll actually type it sometimes just cuz I'm goofy ("cuz" vs. "because").
One thing that does bug me is the way my mom says "Nip and Tuck" instead of "Nip Tuck", She's like "Did you see the episode of Nip and Tuck where....” Drives-a-me-Crazy

I really do like this post though, I’ve learned a lot. I am terrible with my “there”, “they’re” and “their”.
And I’m not sure I get the “Its” “It’s” thing, What is Its? Other than “It’s” less the apostrophe. Is it just a typing error or does Its mean something other than “It’s” which confuses people as does “loose” vs. “lose”? (Which I’m sure are mistakes I’ve made).

Swim said...

I love reading your posts, it's a new chapter every time! I have a certain friend who is the world's worst speller and I started sending her emails back with red edits to fix her mistakes. She thought it was funny but I was completely serious. She still sends out emails with horrid spelling mistakes. Drives my nuts...

Anonymous said...

My pet peeve is the "of" which should be "have"... as in, "I could of gone to dinner with a friend" or "I should of called in sick." The word is "have", not "of". Take note.

Topcat said...

Irregardless - ahhh, irregardless. My sister and I use it on each other when we can, because we both hate it. So. Much.

Hey - well done on the weight loss!!
xox

Anonymous said...

I don't get annoyed at grammer..it seems like such a useless thing to waiste/waste my time on. LOL

trisha

Morgan Owens said...

I'm not going to lie, I said something along the lines of "I need to loose weight." So is it Lose or Loose? So Loose is when something isnt tight enough, and lose is getting rid of something, like weight right? you confuse me nancy and then you make me self-concious about making comments to you because i feel like something i type is bugging you lol

Anonymous said...

I get pissed off by those things too, though I know I make mistakes as well.

Since I know you can take it, I'll point out one I've noticed you making ;) I've noticed you using "of" instead of "have" eg "I should of looked first" instead of "I should have looked first".