27 January 2011

Peeve

While waiting at a stop light today, I saw the following phrase on the back of the truck in front of me:

"If you can read this, your to close."

The lettering had been professionally painted, in fancy cursive script, and then outlined in a contrasting color. It was quite pretty, and clearly a certain amount of painstaking hard work went into the effort. Too bad no one threw any of that care and attention in the direction of a grammarian.

I wish I had been too far away to read it; instead, I sat at that light for what seemed like an eternity, staring at not one but two grammar offenses, waiting for red to turn green, so I could be on my way.

Grammar errors bug the crap out of me. Maybe it's obsessive or cynical or just plain weird, but bad grammar – public bad grammar – confirms my worst fears that our culture is dying a slow, painful, pathetic death.

You'd think I wouldn't have time to care about such things. Unfortunately for me, apparently I do.

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What's your pet peeve?

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6 comments:

nicole said...

LOL is my pet peeve.

Nerdycomputergirl said...

I'm with you!

Teacher Mommy said...

Oh, the grammar errors. Especially the misuse and abuse of apostrophes, poor things!

Kathleen said...

My high school yearbook my senior year said my pet peeves were incorrect spelling and bad grammar. Still holds true. That would have bugged the crap out of me too!

Mama Mama Quite Contrary said...

Bad grammar bothers me too. I am more forgiving than I used to be though. After spending a year and a half living abroad immersed in a language that was a struggle for me to learn, I realized that I actually lost some of my English language in the process. Seriously... I screw up verb/subject agreement in the conditional tense al the time.

My #1 pet peeve is absolutely picking up the phone and hearing, "Who is this? I have this number on my phone." I think it is the height of rudeness and an example of our inability to have patience (listen to the damn message) or deal with the unknown. (God forbid, a wrong number. GASP!)

Mama Mama Quite Contrary said...

"all" the time. See, can't spell either.

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