Let's start a blitz on bad grammar - nationwide

Oh how I agree with almost everything ! My biggest hate, in case no one has mentioned it yet is the misuse of the apostrophe - drives me to distraction !

My pet hate is 'your' instead of 'you're' - I think it will take over soon.

We were always told by the teachers at my C of E school that saying "haitch" was the sign of a middleclass Catholic education. I must say it really grates to hear it coming from radio announcers or politicians.

Forgot to mention the dreaded 'haitch' - a bit of an Essex habit that has spread. Not only does it sound wrong but, sorry folks, the 'h' is silent (aspirate) when spoken as an individual letter of the alphabet.

Another bugbear is ' for free' eg you can have it 'for free'. Let's just think of it being free, free of charge or gratis.

And what about "inside of" / "outside of". Both expressions make me cringe and they are in very common use on the BBC quite apart from just about everywhere else.
I am a linguist too and languages do evolve and English is the most accommodating of any to foreign, and, in particular, American imports.

In order to survive language must be dynamic, and therefore constantly change. This will include the use/misuse of vocabulary and grammer. However much we may dislike some of the modern use, some of it will become normal and acceptable. Saying all that, where did that ghastly phrase "fit for purpose" come from - I shall rip then next person's head off who says it!

Yes, we Aussies are crap at using the right word in the right situation. I think it's a mix of slack teachers who were never taught proper grammar and usage when they were at school, and the drift of Americanisms into (Australian) English. Kids use confusing Americanisms like "lucking out" (which to me should mean running out of luck") or "it being downhill from here" (which to me should mean that things are getting worse), but language does change, for better or for worse.

Joan, when I was in information technology I enjoyed the words, acronyms and phrases that were coined to describe computer stuff. The old pre-USB scanners and external drives that plugged into the printer port were said to be "TWAIN compliant". TWAIN was Technology Without An Interesting Name! My favourite was when the original Palo Alto group invented the mouse they wanted an expression to describe the relationship between the distance the mouse moved on the mouse-mat to the distance the cursor moved on the screen. They called it the "Mickey ratio".

Major irritations: less rather than fewer; confusing 'me' and 'I'; use of the word 'kids' - kids are young goats not children; I read in the Daily Telegraph this week "This was a favourite of Prince William's." - Prince William's what, I ask? Also, misplacing of the word 'only'. Also, confusion of 'infer' and 'imply'. I work with young graduates and their grammar, mis-use of words and spellings are terrible.

Language is dynamic, so as much as we may dislike some of the changes, it must change in order to survive. Even misuse of vocabulary has occured over the years and has frequently become the acceptable norm. Saying all that some things drive me mad such as "fit for purpose" Where did that ghastly phrase come from?

I agree with the posters above about less/fewer. Every time I hear 'less' used wrongly I find myself shouting at the television or radio. And what about 'staycation'? Grrr.

Supernana, I can remember my dear Mum being totally confused when someone said to her "see you later" instead of goodby. She said, "Oh are you coming back then".

I must admit I really can't stand the way people say "Get" rather than "Please may I have. What about people who say " I so shouldn't have done that",etc. Grrrrrrr.....

...and compared WITH...

My current pet hate is 'til. We already have two perfectly good words, till and until, and don't need a spurious abbreviation. This is all over the place these days; even spotted it in Harry Potter - Bloomsbury should know better!

I loathe the expressions 'gob-smacked' and 'bricking-it'. Ooer, methinks that I'm inviting trouble...

Whenever an assistant says, "Seeya later..." my husband is tempted to reply..."About what time? This sounds tempting..."

I agree with HarrisonsGran's comments.

Just a sec, bear with me, when all`s said and done, at the end of the day - we are all unique!!

And what about 'I done' instead of 'I did' all the time, this is on the TV alot.

What matters is whether the person is communicating their ideas properly, surely? Anything that gets in the way of that is a problem, I think.
My pet hate is also the grocers' apostrophe-or do I mean the grocer's apostrophe? Oh, and also multiple punctuation marks!!!!!!?!!!!

OK, back to misuse of words.

Here in Australia they mix up bought and brought, and they often say decimated, which means 10% destroyed, when they really mean completely destroyed. Also, they say literally when they mean metaphorically.

I have to admit that I love some new meanings for old words. Mouse is a good example - the perfect word for a little thing with a sort of tail that moves around a lot!!

OK, can I check: is this a dislike of poor grammar or the misuse of words? I've just bashed out a long rant about the misuse of words only to note someone had pointed out this link was about grammar...to me that means apostrophes in the right place etc...if so I'm going to slink away now as I'm not brilliant at that...but the misuse of words, now that really gets me moaning!

Sorry, just wanted to be sure...call me a picky

What makes me cringe is hearing someone say 'yous' when referring to more than one person, as in 'yous two ....'

As a former teacher in a comprehensive school - whenever I heard this I would kindly and patiently explain that 'ewes' were female sheep and that 'you' was both singular and plural, as in 'you two boys come here'. It did make the pupils laugh though.

My pet hate is "there is nothing worse than..." as in, for instance, "there is nothing worse than smudged mascara".

My pet hate is 'between you and I'. They seem to be scared of using 'me' because of they way some people incorrectly say 'so and so and me did something'.

How do you explain why it is wrong though, when they have no idea what a preposition is, or what the subject or object of a sentence is?

You are so right. I hate different than and different to. It's different FROM.