Spelling/grammatical errors which annoy you the most

Here's a recent one that annoys me.

Critique. It is a noun, correct? Usage would be: "This critique of method acting in film noir makes many good points..." or "James offered a fairly positive critique of the activities politicians indulge in behind the scenes."

Not any more! Apparently.

Instead, one can be seen 'critiquing' the latest Bond film, or maybe they like to 'critique' environmentalists and their cries for attention.

Lest we not forget that from 'critique' comes 'criticise.' And one would criticise the latest Bond film or environmentalist publicity stunts. The connotations are negative with 'criticise' (when they shouldn't be, really) but even so, that isn't the only word in the dictionary you can use.

Charles Manson wrote:Here's a recent one that annoys me.

Critique. It is a noun, correct? Usage would be: "This critique of method acting in Film Noir makes many good points..." or "James offered a fairly positive critique of the activities politicians indulge in behind the scenes."

Not any more! Apparently.

Instead, one can be seen 'critiquing' the latest Bond film, or maybe they like to 'critique' environmentalists and their cries for attention.

Lest we not forget that from 'critique' comes 'criticise.' And one would criticise the latest Bond film or environmentalist publicity stunts. The connotations are negative with 'criticise' (when they shouldn't be, really) but even so, that isn't the only word in the dictionary you can use.

Critique, like task (Bauer was tasked with saving the world) and action (the boss actioned the latest reports) are all tedious terms, I agree.

But why have initial caps on film noir? We wouldn't cap-up genres (except for Western in some areas). I'm willing to be proved wrong on this.

That was an unintentional mistake. Just typed it like that without thinking about it.

Charles Manson wrote:That was an unintentional mistake. Just typed it like that without thinking about it.

Fair enough. Random capitals are one of the most frequent mistakes to look out for at work. We get so much junk supplied to us by the BBC that describes whatever programme as an 'exciting Natural History documentary that follows the Evolution of something or other...'

There is a small portion of people in the world that thinks big, meaningful or grand words deserve capitals for those reasons alone.

I guess I could write for the BBC with posts like that, then! :mrgreen:

Gario wrote:But why have initial caps on film noir? We wouldn't cap-up genres (except for Western in some areas). I'm willing to be proved wrong on this.

I always capitalise genres, though I put that down to habit and personal preference more than anything else.

Banjo wrote:
Gario wrote:But why have initial caps on film noir? We wouldn't cap-up genres (except for Western in some areas). I'm willing to be proved wrong on this.

I always capitalise genres, though I put that down to habit and personal preference more than anything else.

That's fair enough, it's just not the sort of thing people do in publishing. I can't remember the reason, but Western is traditionally capped-up, so it's John Wayne Western, but John Carpenter horror.

Gario wrote:I can't remember the reason, but Western is traditionally capped-up

Because 'Western' is a cardinal direction?

Charles Manson wrote:Here's a recent one that annoys me.

Critique. It is a noun, correct? Usage would be: "This critique of method acting in film noir makes many good points..." or "James offered a fairly positive critique of the activities politicians indulge in behind the scenes."

Not any more! Apparently.

Instead, one can be seen 'critiquing' the latest Bond film, or maybe they like to 'critique' environmentalists and their cries for attention.

Lest we not forget that from 'critique' comes 'criticise.' And one would criticise the latest Bond film or environmentalist publicity stunts. The connotations are negative with 'criticise' (when they shouldn't be, really) but even so, that isn't the only word in the dictionary you can use.

I'm quite surprised this one hasn't popped up yet:

"definately".

it has another "i" in there. Really. Definitely. Look it up.

(same for "independance" vs. "independence", "independant" vs. "independent". Can't be that hard.)

'Definately' is definitely wrong according to my British English spell checker.

smurphy wrote:'Definately' is definitely wrong according to my British English spell checker.

that's what i was trying to say.

Oh yes, I completely forgot the point of this thread. :shifty:

It's not hijinx.

It's not hi-jinx.

It's not high jinx.

It's not high-jinx.

It is high jinks.

Stop ruining it!

Spelling/grammatical errors which annoy you the most

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