Let's start a blitz on bad grammar - nationwide

Don't really care where or why it started-- I recoil every time I hear haitch. We were never taught this. Ugh !!!!

What a lovely idea, I love being a pedant!
My pet hates are 'tuh' instead of 'to', and 'thuh east' instead of 'thee East' (or any other vowel).
I think American films and programmes influence younger people!

I have just joined Gransnet and have so enjoyed reading all the comments. I agree with them all. I have been bothered with them for years. When my husband was alive I would hear groans from the other room,thinking he had fallen or was in some distress only to find that he was listening to the radio and had spotted some grammatical error.
In1999 we bought the two volume OED and I was shocked at the "baby talk" words in it like "postie" for postman and slang . I notice "aint" is creeping in now. I agree with the writer who mentioned the odd way children hold pens. They do not seem to be taught how to write nowadays. I started off with pothooks and hangers and how to hold one's pen. and as to learning how to spell! The trouble is a great many young teachers have never been taught to spell themselves.

How lovely to have somewhere to moan. My bugbear is 'bored of' in place of bored with. Makes me cringe.

I think it was George Orwell who wrote about how sloppy use of language leads to sloppy thinking and he was, undoubtedly right. Grammar is an important tool, especially in the written language, but also matters too in speaking. If "wrong" grammar doesn't obscure the meaning of what is being said, then only pedants should protest – even, although I hate to admit it, when perpetrated by television presenters. When it does obscure meaning, then it truly is a problem. However, Mrs DjangoDog is correct that most of these complaints are about vocabulary. While words do change their meaning over the years, we are losing nuances when words are used in a sloppy way, such as charisma to mean sexy, charming and popular, for example. Similarly, sayings and colloquialisms are also losing their distinctiveness. My pet hate is "in the firing line" for "in the line of fire" – both of which are massively over-used but mean precisely opposite things.

My big hate is the expression 'I turned round and said'. I am always tempted to ask if the speaker had his back to the person in the first place!

I remember (in the 70's) being berated by teacher friends when I said that their pupils will probably have difficulty learning grammar and spelling if they are not corrected, especially in written exercises. Oh no, they argued, their creativity is much more important.
I suppose we are 'reepin wot we sewed'.

what about 'somethink' this has, at a stretch, a totally different meaning than 'something'.

It drives me mad when I hear the majority of people on TV and radio mis-using this word.

Wow, the connection between 'haitch' and Catholic education seems widespread, though I never came across it before. The nuns who taught me were not Irish - maybe that's why? And I agree with PoppaRob that sectarian divisions (and therefore sectarian remarks) were much more prevalent in the bad old days!

Time to throw in the towel and retire to the shed with a bottle of gin - "INNIT" is now permissible as a scrabble word! No doubt it, and other linguistic horrors, will soon be in the Oxford English Dictionary - if they aren't already.

Sorry, I meant to say that table manners should be taught at home. It is certainly not up to the schools to do so. Perhaps the poor use of cutlery can be ascribed to some extent to the lack of families sitting around the table together for main meals. There again, I regularly see adults with the most appalling table manners so their children have little chance of using cutlery properly given the bad example of their elders.

Can't stand hearing that someone has "fell pregnant" surely one is pregnant or was pregnant.
I can't think how this expression has become such accepted terminology.

Quite apart from cutlery, have you seen how children and young people hold a pen or pencil these days? Their writing action is so contorted that they have to place the paper on which they are writing at a right angle or even more.

I spent hours of my first days at school learning writing technique. Which reminds me ...... never noticed how my grandsons write. Hopefully their mother will have dealt with such ugly writing methods.

That was in response to Gigi, btw. Other irritants are "amount" when used in relation to people - it should be the "number" of people, and the word "led" which has all but disappeared from the language as a result of almost everyone mistakenly writing "lead".

Yes, this is the one that drives me nuts! I think all shop assistants should be trained to say " No, you may not get it. It is my job to get it for you. You may have it, with pleasure."

I am enjoying my visits to Pedants' corner...thank you

''gone missing' What is wrong with 'disappeared'?

Regarding haitch instead of aitch, I queried this at my lads' catholic primary school, and the headmaster told me that this mistake had been brought over to Australia by the catholic teaching nuns from Ireland. he had tried to eradicate it, without success!!

There is an opinion that this started at middle class catholic schools, but the one they went to was decidedly working class! It is across the board in catholic education.

Hi raggygranny. I think the religious divide was much greater in the 60s and 70s than now. The Freemasons hold their annual picnic at a Catholic school these days... my old headmaster would have been horrified to see his brethren mingling with papists!

So many of my pet hates here. I think "less" being used instead of "fewer" is the one that really grates when I hear BBC reporters say it. They should know better. I also hate "haitch". I think the use of "mine" for my house originated in Australia and has been imported via the Aussie soaps, as has uni.

Don't you have to double check for mistakes on this thread!

Train Station. What happened to the railway station?

Raggygranny, the middle class Catholic education use of "haitch" is what I have always believed too. I don't know where I heard it but it's been an ingrained belief for a long time.

I have absolutely nothing to add to this thread as all my pet grammar and vocabulary hates seem to have been covered.

Having had a 'middle-class Catholic education' in which the pronunciation 'haitch' was frowned on, I'm a bit surprised that PoppaRob's teachers thought it was a mark of such an education. I wonder whhat gave rise to the idea?

It saddens me that education has such low standards that people making these grammatical errors make not know they are wrong. I still wish they wouldn't though.

My pet hate is "instore" (or "inbranch" etc.). What is wrong with "in one of our shops" or " in your local branch"?