Second, sorry for the late response.

Third, and forgive me if someone has already brought it up, but the correct phrase is “for all intents and purposes”, not “for intensive purposes”. The correct version comes from the shortening of a legal phrase “to all intents, constructions, and purposes”. This was found in an act adopted by King Henry VIII in 1547. Perhaps I misunderstood the posts on this, but I just wanted to clarify.

With regard to pet peeves, I think my biggest peeve is misspelled words in general. I always proofread my work, and spell check is not always right (Eye can tell you that my pea see is rare lea ever wrong, as soon as a mist ache is maid, it nose before two long). So, it is incomprehensible to me that others, especially writers, do not do the same. With informal writing it is not so much an issue for me, but it drives me batty that college level students write with no regard for their grammar or spelling!

They’re/there/their – one of them is a contraction and I think those who do not know how to use them should refrain altogether.

You hear the most idiotic English spoken in areas with large percentages of German ancestry.

Not to be a nitpicker (I am sorry – I really don’t want to be mean), but if we’re going for German purism here, Kindergarten should then be capitalized (Germans capitalize nouns). If we’re not going to capitalize it, then we might as well Americanize the rest of the spelling as well

As far as pronunciation goes, saying Kindergarten with a “t” is ridiculously incorrect. For a native English speaker, it sounds more correct to say the German word with the “d” sound, instead of butchering it with a hard “t”. Articulating that “t”….well, it makes me cringe.

If we’re going to discuss the correct spelling, then we need to pronounce the word correctly. I’m all for the incorrect spelling, because at least people will pronounce it correctly (and I get to keep an ounce of my sanity )

[/fighting for language]

Drives me absolutely nuts.

I have to say that it hurts me if I don’t point these things out.

In fact, sad or not, I have sent messages to Ebayers correcting them on their item listings!

And other stuff but I was here to say something else….!

Patty brought up a good point about quotation marks. I’ve just been reading that there are differences in the way that Americans and Brits use quotation marks.

These: ” to the Brits are quotation marks and are used when quoting speech. These: ‘ are inverted commas and are used when emphasising a word or quoting speech within a quote.

If ye ken whit ah meen…

hehehe!

Am I the only one who would appreciate readers to point out if I err? We seem to be a shy community who get peeved but won’t correct the mistakes of others with a polite comment/email. Feel free to call me out if I goof and let me know if you would appreciate notification of errors too. We all do it sometimes.

2) Liberrians. You know – the men and women who work in a liberry. Checking out books and such.

I did laugh at most of the posts here though!!