And some people use that word when they mean "recipe".

Me, too! There is no such term as "could of." It doesn't even make sense. I understand that "could've" sounds like "could of," but it makes me grind teeth.

Another no-no I hear is the contraction "I's" instead of "my" when used in conjunction to show possession of the noun. Eg. "This is Ben and I's new house."

No. You would never say "It's I's house" or "it's Ben house". You'd say "it's my house" or "it's Ben's house" . Joining possessors doesn't mean you say "Ben and I's house," but say "It's Ben's and my house."

I misuse lay/lie, but not because I don't understand the difference; I do. The reason is that my parents (although both sticklers for good grammar) both misused it all the time. When you grow up hearing it used incorrectly, it sounds awkward to say it correctly. I say "I laid your phone on the counter" instead of "I lay it on the counter" because "lay sounds like present tense. I'll say I'm going to lay down for a nap. I will write these correctly because I take time to think about them, however.

How about "I got caught lying on the bed"? Was I stretched out, relaxed, when I shouldn't have been? Or was I telling an untruth? Or both?

there is a weatherman here in VT who says "acrost" for across, drives me nuts. Trying to sound folksy, I guess.

Lay=to put something somewhere. As in , "Lay the book on the table."
Lie=recline I will go lie down for a bit.
At least that's how I use them, but generally, I just try not to use them!! :-)

Hubs pronounces Massachusetts as Massatoosetts! It's taken 45 years, but he generally says it correctly these days.

I also called the shoes "thongs" until I had to inform newly hired employees about our company dress code. When I told them that they could not wear thongs, they asked me how anyone would know. We all had quite a laugh and I learned to use the term flip flops. :)

Other words and phrases that bug me :

"supposively" should be "supposedly"

"very unique" (Can anything be very one-of-a-kind?)

"whenever" instead of "when" ( "Whenever I went to my mom's last Tuesday...")

Myself" when it should be "me" ("Feel free to call Don or myself with questions." No, feel free to call Don or me.) Check it by leaving "Don or" out. Feel free to call me.

less/fewer mix-ups Use fewer on things that can be counted, less on things that can't. I want fewer weeds in my garden I want less garden work. We need fewer gums flapping. We need less chatter.

Ah, thank you for that!!

The tinkle comment reminded me, my MIL always says she has to squirt. Ughhhh that's worse than tinkle... She also says flustrated instead of frustrated and postate instead of prostate. I'd really rather not hear either word, thankyouverymuch....:D

One word is hard for me to say: BOOTHS

One of my favorite quilting bloggers uses "leafs" for the plural instead of "leaves". As a former proofreader, I think of privately writing her but cannot bring myself to correct someone. I feel embarrassed for her. Maybe she will read this post. ;-)

the word Realtor not Real- it-tor.
Supposibly instead of supposedly
I seen
I axed a question

I'm enjoying this thread. I always tell my students not to rely on the computer for spell/grammar check. My favorite example to share with them is the person who wrote about a plan to lose weight. Her sentence was "I plan to cut out between meal snakes."

When I hear someone use the word conversate, it's like nails on a chalkboard. I know it's actually considered to be a word in an ebonics dictionary, but I still can't get on board with it being a "real" word. Other words that fusstrate me (lol) are: anxious vs. eager, lieberry instead of library, axed instead of asked. Phrases that that bug me are, "I don't got none," and "You see what I'm saying."

The thing that bugs me is the misuse of advice and advise. "I need some advise" "I advice you to use the green material".

Many in Hawaii called them thongs. Not sure about flip-flop. Hubby looks at me strange when I say flip-flop. But that may be localized to his family.

Laid IS the past tense of lay, but lay is the past tense of lie. Oh, how confusing! I was so confused I lay down for a while, or maybe I laid myself down. I know I use those words incorrectly at least half the time.

Words that are often used incorrectly on this board - boarder instead of border, salvage instead of selvage/selvedge.

My DH was from NY, and he had a funny way of saying drawer. The kids used to try to get him to say it, because they thought it was funny. Now I have trouble saying the word too. (Try it - it's a hard word to say!)

At this point in time -

I was at some event when the speaker said that at least 16 times - then I quit counting!

I always had trouble saying "delivery report" at work. Unfortunately, I had to say it lots of times! It's been 2 years since I've retired and I STILL can't say it! Try it 3 times in a row!!!!! You'll almost swallow your tongue! ha!

Something lots of people say around here is "samich" instead of sandwich!

My dear Husband is from Philly and he has an accent that tickles me. Conner for corner and wooter for water. When he says bury it sounds more like beery and mary is meery.

I am from southern California. So we have made a truce.....I don't tease him (much!) and he doesn't make fun of my hippy dippy (his words) way of speaking.

How about Stood instead of stayed?

My husband and I clash on the pronunciation of words all the time. He is from Massachusetts and I am from South Carolina. For example, he pronounces Amish using a long vowel sound on the a. I pronounce it using a short vowel sound on the a.

Somebody mentioned the misuse of words on this board, like boarder vs. border. I wonder how many people really do know the difference, but when they re-read their post, they find their mistake and cringe a little. I know that has happened to me before. I definitely know the difference between their, there, and they're, and two, too, and to, but there have been times when, in my haste to send an email or a message, I just overlook a mistake until it's too late. Ernest Hemingway said "The first draft of anything is s__t." How true that is. I'd like to think that some of the mistakes that I see are just a lack of editing, and I hope that everyone will look at my errors with the same attitude. And can I just say that the auto-correct feature on my Kindle is the devil reincarnated.

One I ran across when I moved to Wisconsin (though not everyone uses it so it may not be a regionalism, just poor education) is "I borrowed something to someone". Gah! No. Loan to & borrow from.

I also see loose & lose used interchangeably in writing. That would mean loser meant less tight, no? : )

I can't do effect/affect with any real consistency (also, a synonym is a word that replaces the one you can't say, spell, or use correctly).

However, some things just stick with you from childhood. I still say "I'm fixing to do xyz" or "I'm fixing to go to the store" etc. Very southeastern USA, y'all.

If you are old enough to remember when thongs went on your feet you probably shouldn't wear them anymore since there is no support for your arch.... If you are old enough to remember when thongs went on your feet you probably shouldn't wear them anymore because your backside needs a little support too and thongs (of either type) don't support anything.

Notwendy, I grew up saying that I was fixing to do something too, or that "it's coming up a storm", or that we "put up" 40 quarts of tomatoes, instead of we "canned" 40 quarts of tomatoes. And a pepsi-cola could refer to any kind of soda, unless you decided to call it by its true name. Dinner was eaten arbout noon-time, and supper was the evening meal. If we were cooking enough of something (like beans) for a meal, we would say that we were cooking up a mess of beans. I could go on and on. I've lived in many different places, and every place has their own personal collection of regional things that they say and do.

The ones I see way too often are then and than. I hope these are simply typos.

Can someone "cut off the light" is a colloquialism I heard a lot from my okie forebears.

It's "shut off the light" where I'm from. When I lived in Virginia, they " parked the car in the dooryard," whereas I park the car in the driveway. In some places, there are hoagies. Up north there are grinders or subs. Where I"m from, there are submarine sandwiches. In Ohio, they had pop. In Virginia, they had tonic. And in the Carolinas, we had pepsi-cola (or a "drink")..

My Mom always called it Cold Drink. (Arkansas). Most common use these days around here (NM or TX) is Coke...that means any type of soda.

This is a great thread! I really am educated, but I find myself using so many slang words and sentences. My DMIL used to say-- Don't tump that glass over. Not sure if it was dump or tumble. That bothered me. LOL We all have our own ways of talking but some times they sound ignorant. (sp) I really am enjoying reading these. I probably may several grammer errors in this. LOLOL :)

This is a great thread GrammieJan. Thank you for starting it. I imagine Coke and Pepsi are laughing all the way to the bank because their marketing strategies must have reached across generations of people.

Ooops! I'm guilty of mixing up advice and advise! I am enjoying this thread though.

Ha ha! This is another one that people do a lot that makes me chuckle - LOL means laugh out loud, so you're saying "laugh out loud out loud"! :D

"these ones".... gosh, it hurts me just to type the words....

Real-tor, NOT re-la-tor!!! Please, as a former one, it is worse than nails on a blackboard to me :eek:!

Peggi, maybe the hint that "separate" is "apart" from something will help you remember that the word is se-par-ate.

My personal bugaboo is the lie/lay, laid, lain group. Must have missed that week in grade school -- probably with severe poison ivy, which happened several springs in a row!

Jan in VA

The proper use of the words in the lie, lay, laid, lain group have eluded me, too.

The one word that I see typed and then hear spoken that drives me crazy is "your" when "you're" is meant. I fear that the millennials truly believe that "your welcome" is what is said after "thank you" instead of "you're welcome".

I do have one question. How do people diagram a sentence? I have heard the term, but have never known what it means.

Jan, for years I thought the word was pronounced real-a-tor. I don't know why... It isn't spelled the way I thought it was pronounced. Likely local mispronunciation as folks from New Orleans always "ax" for directions.

I loved diagramming sentences!! It helped me learn grammar in a logical way. Kind of hard to explain but it is like creating a family tree out of the words in your sentence. You draw lines to connect the word to the right part of the sentence and then write the word on the line. Best thing to do is to check out google images after you search for "sentence diagramming". Subject/Verb/Object are the three main words and their order in English sentences. All other words are connected to one of those three words.

@@@@@@@@

Dunster, you are right again! Twice now you've caught my error . I'm kicking myself (and am embarrassed) that I'm writing before thinking; if I thought through each example three times, I wouldn't have to keep wiping the proverbial egg off my face.

Do you mean "grammar"? 😜