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The annoying solecism I hear most frequently is people saying "good" instead of "well." I rarely hear it the other way around; people tend not to use bad grammar mistakenly thinking it's good grammar, but I'll get to that in a moment. The difference between the two is quite simple: "Good" is an adjective, "well" is an adverb unless defined as "in good health." Thusly, both "I feel good" and "I feel well" are correct; "good" describing your mood and "well" describing your health. Conversely, "I feel badly" is wrong because "badly" is an adverb. You are not describing the manner in which you feel; you are describing yourself. To say you feel badly says that you literally feel badly, like there's something wrong with your sense of touch. Next—"Hopefully." It is an adverb; it does not mean "I hope so." If you aren't using this word to describe a verb, you're misusing it. Stop it. Now. The difference between "that" and "who." Obviously, "who" means a person and "that" means an object. With objects, "that" is more general; "which" is specific. Could it be clearer? Ugh. Now, "who" and "whom." This is less of a pet peeve, but since I mentioned "who," I figured I may as well drag this into it as well. Besides, you might learn something. And yes, I will be mentioning "whoever" and "whomever." Anyway, it's fairly simple; just a subject/object thing. The choice is determined by the grammar of the clause within which the pronoun occurs. There's a whole page about it here. Actually, I'm not too uptight about this one since hypercorrecting or overcorrecting can sound stilted or indeed be incorrect. It's like the feeling bad(ly) thing. Don't go overboard. In fact, when in doubt, avoid using the words altogether. But it will sound so awesome if you can get them right. Ending sentences with prepositions is not strictly speaking the most heinous of solecisms (that would be using "good" for "well"); in fact, it's not even a real grammar rule. It doesn't even have a basis in English syntax. It's like the split infinitive; it's based in Latin, even though English is descended from German. As a general rule, I prefer to avoid ending sentences with prepositions just as a force of habit, though sometimes it's necessary to avoid stilted or unclear speech. Having said that— THAT GODDAMMED "AT." FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, DO NOT EVER ASK WHERE SOMETHING IS AT! I DO NOT CARE IF IT IS NOT A REAL GRAMMAR RULE, IT SOUNDS SO GODDAMMED STUPID. DON'T DO IT. For serious. I dated a guy once who did this all the damned time. I dumped him. "Your" for "you're"; "its" for "it's," or, God help the moron who uses this non-word, "its'." THIS IS SO GODDAMMED OBVIOUS YOU STUPID FUCKS. "You're" means "you are." "It's" means "it is." DUH. Ellipses. An ellipsis consists of three ellipsis points (four at the ends of sentences, but with an extra space around the period at the end). Three dots, not five, not ten, certainly not twenty. I prefer to place a space between each dot. The famous "lie" versus "lay." Ignoring the definition of "lie" as "to tell a falsehood," the difference is simple: "Lie" means, as in, "lie down"; "lay" means "to set something down." The kicker, of course, is that "lay" is the past tense of "lie." Oh, and "have lain" versus "have laid." "Lain" is the past participle of "lie"; "laid" is the past participle of "lay." Quotation marks. Except for commas and periods, all punctuation marks belong outside the quotation marks unless they are part of the quote. Note that I have semicolons outside quotes all over the damn place on this page. And, last but not least, my very least favorite of all solecisms, even beyond the confusion of "good" and "well," "hung" versus "hanged." A picture is hung; a person is hanged. The past participles used to be interchangeable, but over the centuries, "hanged" evolved to refer specifically to being suspended by the neck from a noose until dead. It is used to refer to capital punishment or suicide. "Hung" refers to everything else. GET IT RIGHT, YOU FUCKING MORONS. |