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Monday, October 6, 2014

Pet Peeves Part 2

I have been getting some reading done, finally. Vacation was good for that. I read 3 1/2 books!! Awesome!! However, it was exposing me to individual writing styles. I get critical I know it. I sometimes feel like the grammar police when I am reading or the spelling police.

There are some violations I can just overlook, but there are some that are so flagrant, I just can't turn and look the other way.

I have two new pet peeves.

If you will recall, the first two I posted about were beloved and for. "Beloved" grates "for" it is tired and overused and if you recall. "For" when used as illustrated bugs the crap out of me.

I now add "past" and "thank you very much".

It is frightening to me just how often writers use past when they mean passed. For example, I will read "I past the car on the right" when it should be passed. While I have overlooked this in the past (correct usage), it is occurring more and more frequently and I find I have to add it to my Verbotten list. It just may prevent me from reading a book if I find it early enough on.

While "thank you very much" is in itself not offensive, I get tired of reading it over and over, thank you very much. See? See how I did that? And that is the issue. I was reading a sample yesterday and in the first chapter alone, or perhaps chapters one and two, "thank you very much" was tagged onto the end of three separate sentences. It smacks of attitude. Condescension perhaps? Arrogance? Just being a smart arse? Can't quite put my finger on it, but the phrase has now joined the ranks of That Which Should Not Be Written.

I do have an attitude, but I enjoy well written work and authors that fall back on these types of conventions repeatedly really get my goat.

So, I shall be saying nay to all the "beloved", "for" and "past", "thank you very much".

2 comments:

  1. Feel good to get that off your chest? Something I need to do as there seem to be several peeves I have at the minute. I know what you mean about the usage of past instead of passed which seems to be a growing problem that far out weighs their, there and they're.

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    1. Yes, I feel better, but don't get me started on they're, there and their. Oh and I forgot to add documentated to the list. I actually saw this while reading one of my samples, but forgot to write down which one it was and now I can't remember.

      I here it a lot in Newark where I work and it makes me cringe. Newark is one of the pits of New Jersey, perhaps like Cardiff. I've come to expect these kinds of things in Newark, but on the page of a book??

      My Peeve list is getting very long indeed.

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