Language

I hate typos, but I hate people who write “typo’s” even more. It came to my attention that my last post contained a typo. Obviously I’ve fixed it now, otherwise this rant would have no meaning.

We’re all human and mistakes can happen. Sometimes we check what we’ve written and don’t spot them either. And those little squiggly lines Word handily insert to alert you of a potential grammar infraction are mostly ignored.

The main culprits are people who don’t understand the difference between there, their and they’re, or your and you’re, but there are many other examples which make my piss boil.

The constant misuse of the apostrophe in practically any word ending in s annoys everyone except those too stupid to realise they’re doing it. In particular, signs in shops for “CD’s” and “DVD’s” or anything from the “80’s” make me want to burn the places to the ground.

“Am” instead of “I’m”, “should of” and “I don’t no” are “defiantly” some of the most common irritants of this age and many people who are pulled up on this claim to be “a bit dyslexic”. I ate salad yesterday, does that make me “a bit vegetarian”? No, it doesn’t. Accept that you’re wrong and learn the bloody difference. I’m reasonably sure schools still teach these things.

But what about spoken mistakes? The next shop assistant who asks me to enter my “PIN number” is getting a punch in the teeth and no, I won’t use the bank’s “ATM machine”. There are many of these, too many, in fact, to “be Pacific”.

Sayings that annoy us are a different kettle of fish. My mother, for instance, hates “the proof is in the pudding”, when the pudding’s proof is meant to be in the taste. This one doesn’t irk me so much as the taste of the pudding clearly comes from the pudding where the proof lies, so it’s fairly valid.

I unwittingly mentioned “holding down the fort” to a former colleague who then went on a tirade about the whole thing and sent me a link to a video of David Mitchell saying exactly the same. Perhaps we shouldn’t close the door after we’ve put our carts in front of bolting horses in that case.

I have checked this for mistakes several times, but please feel free to point and laugh at the ones I’ve made. I’ll only tell you they were all intentional anyway, but inside I’ll be angry that I made them. After all I did once sever all contact with a girl after she texted me saying she was “looking forward to are date”. Oh very dear.