Words

The Phantom Professor has started an online writing course and I thought, "what the heck, I could do with a challenge" and joined in. (There are no exams or penalties for not doing the assignments, which appeals to me.)

There was a quiz and a discussion about common misuses of words, which got me thinking about some of my pet hates. There are the obvious ones, such as "should of" instead of "should have" or "should've", and then there are the ones that really get on my goat.

So here's my preliminary hate list -- just off the top of my head:

over instead of more than

less instead of fewer

your's instead of yours, etc (the latest issue of the Sydney Swans members' magazine is awash with apostrophe errors -- of both omission and commission. They need a proofreader! Badly... and that's another one for the list.)

badly instead of really

hopefully instead of I hope

orientated instead of oriented

dashes instead of colons or semicolons (if you have ever received an email from the Voice of Reason you will know what I mean)

commas instead of dashes

quotation marks for emphasis

commas before "and" instead of after

getting something "off" someone instead of "from" them

amongst instead of among (okay, it's not wrong, it's just old-fashioned)

I could go on...

Please feel free to comment or list your own pet hates.