I have to say that I laughed and cringed while reading this thread. I know that I have a lot of bad habits when I speak. One of them that used to drive my brother crazy is when I said, "Will you open (or close) the light?" Meaning, 'Please turn the light on (or off)." He would always correct me, one day he was so frustrated with me for saying it wrong, again, that he got a screw driver and took the light switch plate off the wall and handed it to me. I just looked at him dumbfounded and he said, "You asked me to open the light, so I did."
Not all of us speak correctly and I say if you understand the 'spirit of the message' then just go with that. I am certainly not an English teacher and I make mistakes all of the time. Hopefully, I can still get my message across.
However, having just said that, I do have a pet-peeve and a fear.
Pet-peeve: "I could care less." Correct usage would be, "I couldn't care less." The other means that they could still care more.
The fear: Reading all of the comments at the end of an article on the web and realizing that most of the commenters really have no clue about grammar, spelling, or writing without using foul language. It makes me wonder if anyone is learning anything in school.
Stepping down from my soapbox now.