I've talked about pet peeves of mine before, little grammar flubs and spelling flaws that send my inner editor into convulsive fits. Well here are five more, comin' atchya hot, and I'll get those engines revving by starting with the most powerful and descending in random order therefrom!
1. So didn't/So Can't I
This first started bothering me in the fifth grade. And when I say bothering, I mean annoying the piss out of me holy shit. When the students did it, it was one thing; we were nine, ten, eleven at most. Mistakes are to be expected from children.
But the teacher. Oh, woe be unto her, though blessed she be, because good lord when I heard the phrase "So didn't she" come out of her mouth during a lesson on Native American life, I wan.ted. to. puke. And when I say puke, I mean projectile vomit on the entire class.
This peeve is not my pet, it is the bane of my existence, it is the skunk living under my porch that eats all my cats' food and every once in a while decides to spritz down my dogs, and I hate it.
If the phrase were used in proper context, it wouldn't be so bad. If someone said, for instance, "I didn't like the movie," and someone agreed with, "So didn't I," that would be fine. A creative, realistic piece of dialogue.
But the way people use it is always as a form of capable agreement. "I can paint a picture," "So can't I!" "I went to the Hawaii over the summer" "So didn't I!" "I'll go to the store tomorrow," "So won't I."
iT MAKES NO SENSE! It's ridiculous, it's preposterous, I expect grammar fuckups from students, but something this severe from my teachers, my god--and on multiple occasions, not just a one-time thing, and never a correction, never once a student saying something, as if everyone else was blind to the blatant abuse of the English language occurring before our very ears!
Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not use the phrase "So don't" to mean "So do." They are antonyms. ANTONYMS!
2. I Could Care Less
Okay, now that we've got some of my crazy out of the way; I could care less. A phrase meant to convey how little one cares about the given situation.
But it makes no goddamn sense.
Because the actual phrase is "I couldn't care less." It's meant to indicate that no fucks are left to be given. You wouldn't say, "I could give a fuck," you say, "I couldn't give a fuck." Saying you could care less indicates that you do care, because there's still less care in the world for you to feel, some cares left to give away.
Unless that's what you mean, when you say "I could care less," you're fucking up, plain and simple. If your character doesn't care at all, or wants to seem like they don't care at all, they want to say there are no fucks left in the bank.
3. Affect/Effect
So I had trouble with these for a very long time myself. It's a difficult balance between the two, and grammatic education is going down the tubes, so a lot of people are in the same boat as me.
The way I finally figured out how to differentiate between the two was essentially this; Affect is a Verb, and Effect is a Noun. See below:
"The effects of the storm were horrible."
"We were horribly affected by the storm."
Next time you need to use one of these bad boys, take a second to ask yourself if the word you need is a verb or a noun--are you being Affected by it, or are you observing the Effects?
4. Whining/Whinging
So this one is included as a fuck you to yours truly, because for a long time I thought "whinging" was just people misspelling "whining" and it really pissed me off. But it turns out "whinging" is a real word, meaning "To complain in an annoying way." So it's basically the same thing as whining.
It's very British (so British that my current spellcheck reads it as a misspelling of whining), which is why I never realized it was a real word. I should make my peace with it. It's a real word. It's a valid word.
But God do I hate it.
(you don't have to tho)
5. Peek vs. Peak
Okay, just one more, not a pet peeve so much as just a word of warning. A peak is the top of a mountain; a peek is something you do in people's windows.
So it's pretty much like the affect/effect thing; if you want a verb, it's peek, and if you want the noun, it's peak.
Happy writing all!
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