FML

[tzikeh]

If EVERY SINGLE FANFICTION AUTHOR doesn't learn the difference between "lie" and "lay" PRONTO, I am going to SET ALL OF THEM ON FIRE.

NNNNNNGGGGGHHHH.

*koff*

As you were.

ETA You don't even have to memorize any rules, okay? I'll give you a mnemonic: "lie" rhymes with "recline," and "lay" rhymes with "place." IT'S. NOT. HARD. As for past and past participle tenses, LOOK IT UP. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IN A CHICKEN BASKET. YOU DON'T EVEN NEED A GRAMMAR BOOK; YOU'RE ON THE INTERFUCKINGNET.

Comments

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

Can I put in a vote for lose and loose?

kthnx

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

[snort] I wish you more luck with that than I've had.

[feochadn.livejournal.com]

Bear and bare have become my personal pet peeves.

[klia.livejournal.com]

If I had a buck for every time I heard or read that, I'd be living high on the hog, baby.

[ginamak.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I mess them up from time to time, because I usually do my writing at 2AM. However, this is why I have not one, but THREE betas. XD

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

OH SO VERY FUCKING YES.

(My personal craze right now is that I CANNOT read something if the author doesn't know how to use the freaking vocative comma. I hate that tzikeh.) (SEE? SEE HOW HORRIBLE THAT IS?)

[dorcas-gustine.livejournal.com]

FANFICTION AUTHOR
Sadly, I've found this and similar mistakes (lose/loose, none of them are) in published fiction as well.

D:

[brak666.livejournal.com]

Good luck with that. I'm still trying to get everyone to realize that 'led' is the past tense of the verb 'to lead' and that 'lead' with a short 'e' is a dense metal.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Breath and breathe.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

:D :D I was thinking about you today--Vanity Fair let their copy-editors have a go at Palin's resignation speech. Don't know if you saw it, but it's hilarious... in that way that the horrifying stupidity of that woman can be. And yes, her office released the *prepared* speech on paper; someone actually wrote that fucking thing.

(Also I have just opened a RL blog for my education work; I named it "Evocative Comma.")

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Wow, that rhyming thing is brilliant - I never thought of that, now I'll always remember.

My pet hate is lose/loose. It'll always, always be there, but I'll never get over it.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I've found this and similar mistakes (lose/loose, none of them are) in published fiction as well.

Oh, me too, but it's far more likely that I will get close enough to a fanfiction author to set her on fire than to a professional author.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

The fact that I've paid money to read things with "it's" where there should be "its" is very, very sad. Also (my current pet peeve) the persistent idea that callous is a noun. GOD. (Apparently this has been my current pet peeve for a while now. [g] But man, looking back through my "i am a language snob" tag has made me all nostalgic.)

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

If I tried to list all of my spelling-grammar-syntax peeves, I'd be sitting at my keyboard till Doomsday. There are some fights that I fear are already lost, though it burns my bottom that I have to give up on them: who/whom; nauseous/nauseated; effect/affect; and on and on.

I need an "Editors will cut you" icon, or something.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I suggest fire. Fire solves oh-so-many problems. We just have to learn how to send fire through the series of tubes into the truck, or something like that.

FIRE.

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw that come across cranky_editors, and giggle-winced; couldn't bear to read all of it, though.

I love "Evocative Comma"! On the Interfuckingnet, indeed.

(I will, however, defend to the death -- armed with my shelf of reference books -- the legitimacy of plural "none" against the next commenter here. But this is me, not engaging!)

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

I need an "Editors will cut you" icon, or something.

ohmygod I want one too.

I also fantasize about modifying this one to say ED-IT-OR.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of modifying that icon! Oh-so-many sentiments could be represented.

Oh! Oh! You know what else has me planning arson all of a sudden? Hypercorrection of "me" with "I." Why now? I don't know. It's always bugged me, but recently I just... it... BOOT TO THE HEAD.

[ginamak.livejournal.com]

THIS. THIS. I quit reading fics when I see this. DRIVES ME UP THE WALL.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

So many hates, so few opportunities to set people on fire.

[ginamak.livejournal.com]

OMG ICON LOVE.

Is it snaggable?

[brak666.livejournal.com]

Totally snaggable.

[ginamak.livejournal.com]

Did you make it? I want to credit it properly. And thanks!

[brak666.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't make it. I got it from somebody who got it from somebody etc...

[vickita.livejournal.com]

I had to take a deep breath and step away from LJ to prevent a post about repel/rappel for "Leverage" writers recently.

[terrio]

Chose and choose. Also whose and who's -- saw this one in a professionally published book a few days ago.

[hubbit.livejournal.com]

I complained about something similar two years ago, not with fanfic but with a sociology book written by a Columbia University professor and published by Harvard University Press.

Copy editing is, I sadly fear, a lost art. Too many writers and their editors rely on spellcheck; words can be spelled quite correctly and still be incorrect contextually.

One very often gets the urge to stop reading anything published after, say, 1972.

[epistrophia.livejournal.com]

Scrapped and scraped. If I see "X scrapped his nails down X's back" once more I'm going to scream.

[the-shoshanna.livejournal.com]

Hypercorrection of "me" with "I."

GEOFF DOES THAT IN SPEECH.

I mean, I love the guy to pieces, but.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in print I hate it, and when people use it in speech I just... flinch internally and have to restrain myself from correcting them.

Also "myself" and all of its other versions.

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

When I was seven a teacher admonished me that chickens lay eggs, and it stuck.

I'm not going to go into my pet peeves because I shouldn't start my day with that kind of RAGE.

[terrio]

And in a similar vein, "chaffed/chaffing" instead of "chafed/chafing".

[terrio]

I was visiting my folks a number of years ago and decided, for whatever reason, to go to church with them. The pastor, in his sermon, actually said, "for you and for I." ::shudder::

[kelliem.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. It is OUR pain. (See my annual rant... (http://kelliem.dreamwidth.org/153987.html))

[hubbit.livejournal.com]

My special irritant is "he's/she's/you're a real trooper". The correct word is trouper.

The phrase comes from the day (about a century ago) when life in a traveling troupe of actors was a hell of hardship and deprivation. One who had the stamina to continue such an existence, and who could even be cheerful in its midst, was "a real trouper".

[terrio]

Oh, and I was just reminded: defuse/diffuse.