Pet Peeves–Grammar Edition
Even if you’re not a grammarian or an editor, there are probably things people say that really annoy you. I’ve expounded upon this once before, when I discussed my disgust with the misuse of the first-person pronouns Me, Myself, and I.
Well, there’s another one that started really bothering me when I was in the galley-edit phase of A Case for Love and has come to my attention many times since then. And that’s the incorrect usage—by authors and copy editors—of the verb bid in the present-tense form (bid) when it should be past tense like every other verb in the narrative of a book. (Yes, this post was prompted by seeing this egregious error in a book I was reading last night.)
- Correct: “Then I shall take my leave and bid you farewell.”
Incorrect: He bid them goodnight and left.
The correct past-tense form of bid is bade:
- Correct: He bade them goodnight and left.
Then there’s the past-perfect tense:
- Incorrect: When the servants did what he had bid, he dismissed them.
Correct: When the servants did what he had bidden, he dismissed them.
Bid, bade, bidden. (And, by extension, forbid, forbade, forbidden.) It’s as easy to remember as give, gave, given.
I know I’m not the only one with this kind of pet-peeve. What’s one of yours?
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KayeDacus.com 
Bid is a good one . . .
You may have already covered it, but I stand by my original pet peeve -Using “I” as an object. It’s bad enough when you hear this in person from those you consider well-educated, but when I hear news reporters do this, it literally makes me cringe. I lose SO much respect for them. It’s as if the word “me” is a colloquialism, or on par with “ain’t” or something.
Do you know what a huge fear, is, though? That I will comment on a topic such as this – and be grammatically incorrect . . . oy! 🙂
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Me couldn’t agree more. (And yes, that’s what I discussed in the post I linked to.
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Your and you’re.
I cringe every time I see them mixed up.
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Yep, they’re you go. Theirs nothing I hate more than people who get those mixed up. There going to have to learn the difference one of these days! 😉
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I completely forgot about “it’s” and “its.” It drives me crazy. It’s a tough one, because you don’t catch it in the spoken word, JUST in writing.
I think the only reason I never had trouble with “their” and “they’re” is because I mis-spelled “their” all the way through my TYPED Junior research paper (I say typed, because this was before word processors!). It was about Rogers and Hammerstein. LOTS of “their” in that one.
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The ol’ objective “I” is a big one for me, too, but there’s a specific subject-verb agreement problem I see (and hear) all the time that makes me absolutely crazy:
When the singular subject of a sentence is modified by a prepositional phrase with a plural object, (or vice versa) people seem to match the verb to the object of the preposition rather than to the subject of the sentence probably 75% of the time or more.
Example: The flock of geese were noisy.
This just kills me, and I really have to bite my tongue to keep from correcting people. I’m getting myself riled up just writing about it.
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Affect and effect. Gah.
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Peeked, peaked, piqued.
He peeked around the corner to see if the policeman was still there.
The volume of the music peaked with a sudden clash of cymbals then subsided to a soft lullaby.
Her interest in the history of quilting was piqued by the museum’s special quilt show.
Using “not” to split an infinitive (other splits bother, this one annoys.)
He hoped to not be delayed by another traffic jam. (incorrect)
He hoped not to be delayed by another traffic jam. (correct)
Wallah for Voila (French for “Aha!” or “There you go!”) [Mid-18th century. < French< voi "see!" + là "there"] Encarta Dictionary.
Plus the ones listed above!
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“Irregardless” used for “regardless”. Have you heard anyone use it? I laugh every time I hear it!
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