Thread: Pet peeves

I'm not complaining about slang, or occasional mistakes that everybody makes, I'm talking about stupid things that sound awful, but that everybody thinks is correct. Mostly I'm afraid that people have decided to change the language without asking me.
<rant>
What is setting me off lately is the completely unnecessary construction: "If I would have done..."

Why? Why? Why? "Had" is all you need to say. "Had"-- it's so easy!
If I had gone to the doctor...
not
If I would have gone to the doctor...
</rant>

This truly just a pet peeve. It's bad style, but not wrong. If it disappeared forever, though, I would rejoice.

Thank you, I just had to let that out.

Originally Posted by Matroskin Kot

Mostly I'm afraid that people have decided to change the language without asking me

They change Russian on me all the time. Without asking me either!

There's some people over there...

В речи, ну да, все так говорят, но в письме это мне невыносимо!

Originally Posted by Matroskin Kot

I'm not complaining about slang, or occasional mistakes that everybody makes, I'm talking about stupid things that sound awful, but that everybody thinks is correct. Mostly I'm afraid that people have decided to change the language without asking me.
<rant>
What is setting me off lately is the completely unnecessary construction: "If I would have done..."

Why? Why? Why? "Had" is all you need to say. "Had"-- it's so easy!
If I had gone to the doctor...
not
If I would have gone to the doctor...
</rant>

This truly just a pet peeve. It's bad style, but not wrong. If it disappeared forever, though, I would rejoice.

Thank you, I just had to let that out.

It's not just a pet peeve, it's not just bad style, it is actually grammatically incorrect. My Teaching English as a Foreign Language book says so.

The "would" can only go in the second clause (the one without the 'if')

"If I had known it was going to rain, I would have taken my umbrella."

I get "would of" quite often at work in emails.

As in:

"I would of done it, but..."

It's clearly not a typo, just basic illiteracy.

Originally Posted by basurero

There's ... но в письме это мне невыносимо!

Лучше на письме.

Originally Posted by scotcher

I get "would of" quite often at work in emails.

As in:

"I would of done it, but..."

It's clearly not a typo, just basic illiteracy.

Yes, this is a common misspelling. Very much like "Their not doing they're duties" or a mix-up of plural and possessive forms. Used to drive me nuts, but I got accustomed to it .

What is driving me nuts now is when people consistently omit "ed" in passive participles and past-tense forms. "I have been hack". "I have ask you already". What kind of ghetto-speak is THAT? (And those are not accidental typos. People who write like this do it consistently).

And in Russian, things like "мне нравиться этот фильм". Grrrrrrr!!!!

Originally Posted by TATY

It's not just a pet peeve, it's not just bad style, it is actually grammatically incorrect. My Teaching English as a Foreign Language book says so.

The "would" can only go in the second clause (the one without the 'if')

"If I had known it was going to rain, I would have taken my umbrella."

Oh, that's brilliant! I hear it wrong so much nowadays that I had started to doubt myself.

Admittedly, I don't live in the most cosmopolitan place in the world. The Midwest of the U.S. is not well-known for placing a high premium on grammatical speech.

Now I can move on to "important" things like why so many people here say "I'm not for sure about that." And say "whenever" when they just mean "when".

And don't even get me started on people who say "from whence"!

I was an ignorant blithering fool before and wrote "would of" all the time, because I heard people say "would've" which sounds just like "would of!" Now that I am enlightened, I almost don't do it anymore!

You don't study grammar at school, do you?

Originally Posted by Rtyom

You don't study grammar at school, do you?

I didn't, really -). :P Too boring for me-).

I thought the correct version started "Had I . . ."

Originally Posted by paulb

I thought the correct version started "Had I . . ."

"If I had know that..." = "Had I known that...."

Both are possible.