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There's a problem with "there's" when the subject is plural. This is an easy mistake to make, but it's something to look out for.

Okay:
There's a person across the street drinking coffee.

Not Okay:
There's people across the street drinking coffee.

Why? When we don't use the contraction "there's," the problem becomes evident:
There is people across the street drinking coffee.

Maybe this is obvious to you, but it made me grumpy to find that I've done this in my own writing.

What makes you a grammar grump?

Happy grumping!

Sam

I do enjoy a good grump, Samuel, but what a can of worms you're opening here!

I'm old enough that I didn't get a good mark for my schoolwork if there were spelling and grammatical errors, and lucky enough to have easy access to a great deal of well written fiction. The standard of printed English all around me was also better: newspapers, magazines etc were carefully proof read, and it was obvious where adverts were playing with the language. People knew nothing of text speak and mostly just absorbed the rules of grammar and spelling without thinking about it.

So what's my specific grump of the morning? Our education system being played with for too many years by politicians listening to 'educators' and their grand theories, theories that have let British children down. I work with university graduates, most of them in their 20s and 30s. They are intelligent people, experts in their field, and don't have a clue that their communications by letter and email are so full of errors I cringe. Even our national communications team come out with such howlers I'm left shaking my head in amazement.

Then I email them back with corrections!

One fix for the "there's" issue is to refer to a group of people, since "group" is singular.

One of my grumps I run across frequently is not grammar so much as word misuse:

Friend: "That smell is making me nauseous!"
Me: "No, you're not making me sick. You look fine."
Friend: "???"

"Nauseous" should be used to refer to something that makes you feel sick to look upon; the decapitated bunny my dogs left in the back yard was nauseous.

The word for when you feel sick yourself is "nauseated". I felt nauseated when I had to pick up the nauseous bunny to dispose of it.

Although it's been misused so much I suspect it's becoming an accepted form, it still bugs me.

Ooh, ooh, here's another one, although both of these are in common speech rather than so much in writing.

Around here it's common to hear someone say something like, "That chair needs fixed."

I so want to either insert a "to be" in there or change it to "needs fixing".

I suppose I could grump about North Americans changing the language to suit themselves and those changes are now creeping back across the Pond, but I don't. I shall continue my campaign to teach Americans how to spell lol!

Look on the bright side. If a language stops changing it's because no-one speaks it any more. English is most definitely alive and kicking!

Major grump: the misuse of who, which, that. It's become so pervasive, using them correctly sounds wrong. If referring to a person, use who. That refers to things.

Oh, and using "laconic" to describe facial expressions. Look the word up, famous author, before you misuse it.

Don't get me started just don't!!
My pet hate is 'according to me' - how can you accord with yourself?

Just saw a giant sign in town:

"Young artist's inquire within"

What is a young artist's inquire and do I really want one?

When I lived in Minnesota, there was a grocery story that had a sign above the express lane that read, "12 items or fewer." What was wrong with that? Nothing! They actually got it right. In a world of, "12 items or less," somebody in Minnesota got it right!

That reminds me of another supermarket faux-pas. This was in the days when debit cards were just coming into fashion. It wasn't a typo, just questionable wording. As you walked into the store, there was a huge banner reading, "Swipe and Win!". Hmmm...

I started today with a good giggle as this was the start of the first email I read:

A customer has phoned in asking about the distance of her house from a fishing lake. I'm not shore where that is.

Very appropriate.

teehee!

Samuel wrote: "There's a problem with "there's" when the subject is plural. This is an easy mistake to make, but it's something to look out for.

Okay:
There's a person across the street drinking coffee.

Not Oka..."


It's and its.... drives me crazy.
it's = it is, never 'belonging to it'

and yes, why do so many people put apostrophes in when they mean plurals??

Jay wrote: "teehee!

"

That graphic brings up a particular grump of mine. Actually, it's more of a logic grump than a grammar grump. I hate it when on the Intenet, a grammar faux pas opens the offender to a barrage of ad hominem attacks, such as,

"No, the worlds not flat. its round."

"UR AN IDIOT. DON'T U NO WEN 2 UZE AN APOZTROFEE?"

I've recently read several books written by American authors and what irritates me most is 'anymore'. It's NOT one word, it's two words - any more! Is it really so hard to use the space bar?

Hi Jay,

In American usage, "anymore" is usually accepted when it means "any longer." However, "any more" should be two words when it means, "any remaining."

So we would say something like, "I'm not going to use 'anymore' as one word anymore because it makes Jay grumpy." (Sorry, I couldn't help myself.) But, "Are there any more apples?"

One more example of there being two languages, then - American and English. I shall continue to write in English.

Jay wrote: "One more example of there being two languages, then - American and English. I shall continue to write in English."

I love the differences. It's fascinating, especially when I can enjoy the experience of seeing someone use "shall" so comfortably, and someone else make the distinction between anymore and any more.

One of my reasons for grumpiness is "alright," mainly because I see it so much that I fall into using it. Oh, and I recently had to correct "dilemma" in one of my books, because I learned to spell it "dilemna." Dilemma still looks wrong to me, but it is the closest to the Greek root, so I'll buy it.

Sheila

I learned to spell it "dilemna" too, but I see my auto-correct doesn't like it. Hmm.

I cringe at the misuse of pronouns.
"Her and Harry went to town and visited with Terry and I." Double cringe.

Gloria wrote: "I cringe at the misuse of pronouns.
"Her and Harry went to town and visited with Terry and I." Double cringe."

Absolutely agree. (But my wife wants me to stop correcting our daughters....)

K.A. wrote: "I learned to spell it "dilemna" too, but I see my auto-correct doesn't like it. Hmm."

There's a case to be made for correcting your 'auto-correct'. On my PC, I can override the mechanism and make it "do it my way".

Yes, I can do that, too, and usually turn it off completely when I'm in format mode. I got real tired of having it correct "Tiktaalik" (an extinct animal whose name I use as an avatar) to "Titanic" and added "Tiktaalik" to my dictionary. I also add strange names that I create during my writing to my dictionary so it quits underlining them. On a related note, I found one of the names I'd created so difficult to type correctly that I created a macro for it (ctrl H).

Hock wrote: "Gloria wrote: "I cringe at the misuse of pronouns.
"Her and Harry went to town and visited with Terry and I." Double cringe."

Absolutely agree. (But my wife wants me to stop correcting our dau..."
LOL. And I don't correct my hubby.

I have great fun correcting our supposedly trained and definitely well paid communications people in work, especially the Head Office London crew.

There're certainly quite a few great posts in this thread! As a native TexaMexEnglerican speaker, I think we should not focus on the language as writers (I know, counter-intuitive). We should focus more on the people speaking.

Grammatical errors used to dry me nuts to a powdery puff of talcum powder cloudiness for the longest time, but then, one day, while riding the bus, it occurred to me that what I was actually hearing was a gift very few others enjoyed.

I was like a polyglot on the tower of babbledom. I could understand all the tribes, but they couldn't really understand each other. I was like the only guy in the city actually receiving radio signals through his aluminum foil hat -- and understanding them.

This, my friends, is what I recommend when you start getting annoyed by the grammatically-challenged around you:

Stop. Take a deep breath, and think to yourself, "Now, if I were going to put a fool like this in a story, what characteristics of their strange grammatical habits would best capture their personality?"

(And then make sure to go home and fashion a new foil hat because the one your ... heh ... you're wearing will be ruined for that day.) ;-)

For dialogue? Ah, but of course!

Precisely - in dialogue. That is where colloquial speech etc belongs. That adds to the flavour of the character and gives insights into who they are. There is no excuse for extending the errors into the rest of the MS.

Jay wrote: "Precisely - in dialogue. That is where colloquial speech etc belongs. That adds to the flavour of the character and gives insights into who they are. There is no excuse for extending the errors int..."

I agree!

Yeah. What you said. Totally!

Jay wrote: "Precisely - in dialogue. That is where colloquial speech etc belongs. That adds to the flavour of the character and gives insights into who they are. There is no excuse for extending the errors int..."

Interesting. Language is constantly changing, so, where today hardly anyone differentiates between the use of "further" and "farther," once upon a time you may as well have been writing in ebonics had you confused one with the other in a story.

What starts as "de-initialized" becomes, eventually, "deinitialized," and, in common use on the street, "unchecked."

I think there's an interesting conversation to be had regarding how much rules of grammar should dictate what is acceptable in formal writing, and how much those rules should simply reflect the way a certain people communicate using words.

Think about it. According to your declaration above, Jay, Finnegans Wake should be tossed in the trash halfway through page one. After all, the first sentence isn't even a complete sentence, but the last part of the last sentence at the end of the book! lol

Interesting side note:

Ever wondered why not many people have read Finnegan's Wake, Mike?

Jay wrote: "Ever wondered why not many people have read Finnegan's Wake, Mike?"

Woe is I!


(This is actually the title of a cute book I borrowed from the library the other day.)

“This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.��

Churchill, in many different forms

Ah, I remember Churchill's reference to ending a sentence with a preposition. Sometimes grace wins over awkwardness.

Grammar grumping? Mine is Word. Word and I are not the best of friends. For one, Word seems to have a very skewed idea of grammatical rules, and it gets even worse when you're writing a story as opposed to a business document. Turning off the annoying little green squiggly underlines helps.

Secondly, when I do misspell, I have a very bad habit of misspelling a word as another word. So the spellchecker doesn't notice it, and I have to make sure I go over the text with a fine-toothed comb, while not allowing my brain to "fill in the blanks" as I read.

Case in point, a family member of mine saved me from being the enemy of mothers and pastors everywhere by noticing exactly this type of mistake in my book before it went to print. A mythical creature with six legs was being described in one passage, however, I had written the phrase "sex legs". One letter. One letter out of place could have turned my 5th grader-friendly YA fantasy book into, well...you get the idea :)

Speaking of grammar grumps, I found this funny:

Scott wrote: "Secondly, when I do misspell, I have a very bad habit of misspelling a word as another word. So the spellchecker doesn't notice it, and I have to make sure I go over the text with a fine-toothed comb, while not allowing my brain to "fill in the blanks" as I read."

Those get me as well as homonyms.

Good-buy.

One more thing comes to memory,

I sent an email that started with, "Hell, John," instead of "Hello, John." Fortunately, John was understanding.

Jay wrote: "Precisely - in dialogue. That is where colloquial speech etc belongs. That adds to the flavour of the character and gives insights into who they are. There is no excuse for extending the errors int..."

I agree that a third person narrator should never resort to colloquial speech and grammar. What if the narrator is first person present?

I'm not skilled enough to offer an opinion but Jay brings up an interesting question. How do you bring out a character's flavor without disrupting the reader's experience? Obviously if you are fortunate enough to draw the reader in, the last thing you want to do is allow a distraction to "break the spell" but part of the spell is the personal difference that the first person narrator's speech pattern adds to his or her persona. Opinions? Insight?

Thinking about the things I've read and judging them from the viewpoint of what I've enjoyed and what seemed discordant, I'd say for 1st person it works if you use a 'toned down' version of the narrator's natural speech patterns. A few well-chosen words and expressions give a flavour without the reader feeling they're being shouted at 'this person is a Scouser' sort of thing. Consistency is important, too.

Scott wrote: "Grammar grumping? Mine is Word. Word and I are not the best of friends. For one, Word seems to have a very skewed idea of grammatical rules, and it gets even worse when you're writing a story as op..."

lol -- I know the feeling. One thing I do on a daily basis while at work is send out starting record counts in an email to clients. I have this phobia that's developed about leaving the 'o' out of the word 'counts' in the subject line.

Hi, Mike! (waves)

K.A. wrote: "Hi, Mike! (waves)"

Hola! :)

Today's grammar grump is brought to you by the human brain. It is hard to self edit because your brain is working against you. You don't read letter-by-letter but word-by-word. For example, this is something I got from the Internet:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Could you read that? I could. Your brain interprets what it thinks should be there, not what actually is there. This is why you must be so very careful when you self edit. This is also why it is so important to have a critique buddy.

Sam

You're absolutely right, Sam. I've been amazed at how many errors I leave in even by the 3rd, 4th and 5th edits and proof reading. I reckon that despite editing as I go, it then takes at least 20 dedicated edit and proof reading runs before it's ready for publishing.

As someone in my circumstances does not have the money to pay for editing services, I have no option but to do the work myself. It takes me a lot of time, but I only pay me in cups of tea. I also don't have that much faith in editors and proof readers. I've read so many books that have way too many errors, and heard other people saying the same thing, that I've come to the conclusion that if my work is to have errors then they may as well be mine.

There are some tricks that help in the process of catching the errors. First step is to pay attention as you type to Word's blue and red and green squiggly lines. I know Word often gets it wrong, but you need to check to see which ones are right. Then do a spell check and grammar check in one sweep. Then look at the MS in different formats. Print it and do just one page at a time so the brain stays fresh. Convert to e-format (I like mobi) and check it on a small screen reader like a Kindle - there are fewer words on the screen than on a printed page, plus it has been reformatted into shorter lines so it becomes painfully obvious where you have repetitions. As you find the errors correct them in your Word file. Doing it at the time helps keep the mind focussed. Then go back to a new printed copy. Repeat as necessary. It helps to give yourself time between edits, too, ideally a few months before the last edit. I was too excited the first time and rushed to publish, then I had to contact my readers via Amazon to let them know edition 2 was available. By then I had a 3* review on Amazon that pointed out the error of my ways!

Above all, for proof reading do it in small chunks and preferably random pages, keeping track of which ones you've done and which you haven't, so that you are not thinking about the story but the job in hand.

Those are some great tips, Jay. Although I've used a professional editor in the past, I proofed carefully before sending it in and was able to do the corrections on each manuscript within a couple hours when they came back. This time I'm using an editor who charges by the hour rather than the word - so the fewer issues, the cheaper it is. We'll see how that goes. You can use beta readers as well.

I think that now I've been through a couple editing cycles, I've learned a lot and know what they are looking for & what to correct, so I'm probably better at proofing and editing my own manuscripts than I used to be.

One other thing: if there's a word I'm not 100% sure about, I look up the definition. For example, recently I wanted to use the word 'palate' (the roof of the mouth) but had written 'palette' (which is correct as far as WORD is concerned). I decided to check it and discovered my error.

I do a lot of checking online, but never far from my side is a 30 year old dictionary that takes a forklift to get it onto my lap (excellent exercise for a sedentary writer!). The in depth etymology and examples tell me a great deal beyond the 'is it right or wrong' issue. I've learned a great deal from my ancient dictionary. One of my dogs has eaten the front cover and the other tried licking her way through the spine, but I'm not about to abandon my invaluable friend.

Samuel wrote: "Today's grammar grump is brought to you by the human brain. It is hard to self edit because your brain is working against you. You don't read letter-by-letter but word-by-word. For example, this is..."

When I first read this post, I really agreed. It seems so intuitive to believe that you have to have others read your work if you want to catch all the grammatical errors (not to mention continuity and plot blunders!)

Reflecting on it for a few minutes though, I thought of other artists/creators/craftsmen. Do we really believe Picasso needed somebody to tell him a line was a little off? Joyce? (Yes, I'm making line pull double duty there.)

I think that, just as with anything else, the more we write, the less outside help we need. In fact, it can be detrimental to our writing at times because, as we're all aware, there's a fine line between pointing out an error and making a suggestion. Then a suggestion can become an observation ... and eventually that observation can lead to literal collaboration! (like, literally ... heh)

Still, I'm conflicted, because writing is a different beast than other art forms. Even Stephen King in On Writing recommends having first readers. These are people who aren't professional editors but people with normal occupations. They're friends or family who read your final draft before you send it off to your agent or publisher (if you're one of those old fashioned types who still does that -- No Simultaneous Submissions, Fleas! )

It would be nice if I had family or friends who would be interested in doing that, but I don't, so I either have to pay somebody to read my stuff (something I could never afford) -- or I have to rely on myself, which is what I do. I agree with Jay where she wrote that if there are to be mistakes in the final product she'd rather they belong to her than another person.

Okay, this caught my attention and I was basically thinking out loud in silence (except for the tapping of my keyboard) here....