This doesn’t quite fall under the guise of what cultural literacy is all about, but I think it’s important to have proper grammar and style in order to be understood and thought of as intelligent.
Plus these mistakes just bother me.
I will fess up however, that I still make or just recently corrected some of these mistakes. Of particular note I think are
- Using a possessive apostrophe for nonpossessive words (1800’s vs. 1800s), and
- Transposing and mispunctuating e.g. and i.e. (…a small gift, i.e. a plant or flower vs. …a small gift [e.g., a plant or flower]).
Even if you think your grammar is perfect, I am sure you commit one of the errors on the list. If not, I will give you a present. (The present is a link to a LOLCat of my choice.)
(image by Cellach)
[tags]grammar, culture[/tags]
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
If you understand the Latin, you’ll never make the mistake again. I.e. is short for ‘id est’, or ‘that is’. The use of i.e. should be to clarify or define, not to give an arbitrary example.
I can’t say I remember what e.g. stands for, though the ‘e’ is either examplis or examplia.
I think both look really weird in writing and mostly use them in email.
I think they look sexy in writing, but then again I come from the sciences. All acronyms and abbreviations are sexy:
QED
GeV
LOL
Funny, I always read i.e. as “that is” in my head, but I had completely forgotten why.
Yeah, I don’t make those two particular mistakes, but I do feel like a hypocrite of the English language when I invent my own reasons for throwing in commas or avoiding semicolons because I sometimes find them jarring.
Funny, I find that I add too many semi-colons because I think they look cool; however, I’ve been called out on it many times.