How do you annoy a writer?
The list is to long too fit hear.
I do have an infographic for you that isn’t too long. It lists down 10 of the most annoying writing mistakes – according to Lawrence Ragan Communications. The group conducted a survey with LinkedIn users as the respondents. Whether that’s a good measure of “most annoying writing mistakes” or not is up for debate in points.
However, as you may already know, I am quite flexible in some cases. For example, many (most?) experts say that using the passive voice is bad. I believe that it is not always the case.
There are some really annoying writing mistakes in the infographic, though – so annoying they actually made me laugh.
Anyway, take a look, and let me know what you think about the list.
My question is this: what would the list include if we ask FWJ readers? Are you up for another poll?
P.S. Do you spot something off in the infographic?
Yes! Some of my biggest pet peeves are listed here! Double negatives especially get me every time!
I don’t know nuthin’
Gender neutral language annoys me the most. When a writer contorts his sentences to avoid using a masculine pronoun in its generic sense. When he writes “they,” but the context is singular. To write “humankind” or “people” instead of mankind is almost as bad. Writers need to man up and resist this annoying habit.
Language evolves. “They” is now a sigular gender-neutral pronoun, deal with it
@Brutus – I’m in agreement there. “They” is only a tad less annoying than the obsessive use of “he or she” (as in “If a person goes shopping, he or she may choose to purchase items which best suit him or her”) which preceded it.
I find “Gender neutral” writing very distracting to read.
Can I add one to the list? Emoticons (or emojis if you’re 13 years old) have become a form of literary fungus. What’s wrong with completing an email with a full stop?