grammar question

I also hate "see you later "especially when spoken by someone like a cashier or bus driver that you have no plans to see ever again. It was once said to me by the receptionist at a hotel several hundred miles from home !

Don't like the way people are beginning sentences with "so."
Also heard someone pronounce surreal as so real.

I'm in agreement with Falcon, beginning a sentence with 'So.....' is becoming very common and very irritating.

My real horrors though are the teeth-grindingly annoying 'off of' and the seemingly universal, but shudderingly awful 'should of'.

It's HAVE, SHOULD HAVE!

(Breathe and relax, you can cope )

I start sentences with "So . . ." when they do really have an observation that follows on logically from the previous one. Rather like starting a line of a mathematical proof with "Therefore . . ."

I do that as well Elegran for the same reason. Should we from now on start sentences with Therefore?

There seems to be a fashion now for leaving off the pronoun before the verb in when writing or typing - eg "Went shopping today", leaving out I or we, or "Saw Mary in the market" etc.
I can't make my mind up whether it's useful or not - it seems to speed things up.

There is a florist near me who has a chalk board outside which says
'we provide flowers for funeral's, wedding's, birthday's etc.' Every time I walk past I am tempted to rub out the apostrophes.

I like the greengrocers signs with apostrophes. I saw one where a potato owned some tomatoes, cucumbers and some eggs.

Potato's, tomatoes, cucumbers and eggs.

Elegran and duramjen - please don't stop using "so" at the beginning of a sentence, language is changing all the time it's just a personal thing with me. My sons use "so" all the time.

I used to teach the apostrophe and we had fun with Santa and his Grotto. i.e. Santas' Grotto. How many Santas how many Grottos.

There is talk about stopping the use of the apostrophe. It is complicated and before I taught it I had to look it up and study it quite closely.

No!!!

They can't abolish the apostrophe - all sorts of misunderstandings could ensue...

It's not that hard...

thatbags just love your alligators.....adopting it if I may?
Anya your ICE is a cool rule, thanks for that
KatyK great comments

I am losing my hearing, to a degree (I hope) so have the subtitles on a lot of the time and find some of the interpretations hilarious. I cried with laughter a few weeks ago when Boris Johnson was called Irish Dancing - now we can differ on pronunciation but that was a beauty!!

Ooops.....sorry thatbags and the 'which' explanation - think I've got it now

I have just received a promotional email with this priceless example of a misplaced apostrophe:

Leed's Newest Open Air Theatre

Alligators will love being adopted, mummsymags

Re the which/that discussion, both the examples I gave could miss out which/that entirely as well. That may be the simplest option in many cases!

e.g. I own this broomstick which [insert semi-colon here in stead]; I'm about to fly on it to the next gransnet party.

The broomstick that I enjoy flying on the most is over there.

instead

bags darling, shouldn't that be...the broomstick what/wot I enjoy...

thatbags I'm not known for using one word when a dozen will do!! Thanks for the explanation and examples, they helped a lot - so simple once you 'get' it. I can't believe I struggled with it now. Mental block. Many thanks.

Sign painted van I saw, "Farmer's Market's Organiser's". When I taught year 3 apostrophe use, every piece of writing for weeks was then adorned liberally with apostrophes. We used to call them 'Tadpole picnics'

When I was teaching the apostrophe on a Business Admin Course for adults some of the questions in the test paper were tricky. I can't remember them exactly but this is an example from memory.

Pluralize and place apostrophes in the following sentence:

The secretarys desk was close to the directors office.

Mr iPad doesn't help. He adds apostrophes all over the place unasked. We have quite a tussle sometimes when I try to remove them. I just typed Saturday's (as in "Enjoy your Saturdays Everyone") on Mick's Good Morning thread and see? Apostrophes. Should they both be there? Have I got it wrong? I do struggle with them - probably they're used wrongly so often.

I had an ordinary Grammar School education, and I have to say that the apostrophe seemed perfectly logical to me - BUT nobody said a dickie-bird about the 'its' v. 'it's' question. I was in my twenties before that was brought home to me.

"Look at my dog. It's got its paws in its bowl and it's walking in its dinner."
(i.e., it's = 'it is' and 'its' is possessive.) Duh...

You have all made my day. I have always thought I was the only grammar pedant after losing my dear father! I don't think anyone has mentioned "half a per cent". Grrrr!

It's "there", "their" and "they're" that I find annoying. So often it's the wrong one that is used.
I was taught an easy way to remember-
It's not here- it's over there

And how many times do we see 'loose' used instead of 'lose'?

Drives me mad...

The one I dislike most intensely is the widespread use of the plural fungi when the singular, fungus, is what is actually what is required.

And as for people pronouncing it funji (j as in jog).... Shudder.