Pet Peeves

I've been ill this week, having had a sore throat through most of Fathers' Day weekend and been diagnosed with tonsilitis on Monday. Between the sore throat, painful swallowing, and generally feeling bad, I've focused a bit on negative things, including some of my pet peeves.

Language (grammar and spelling) is one area in which I'm quite a snob. I realise and accept that languages (grammar as much as vocabulary) change over time, but our languages have rules for a reason: so that we can express ourselves clearly and concisely to one another. (Fine, call me a prescriptivist; I wear the label proudly.) I'll skip my opinions on stylistics and even the routine rants about such pedestrian errors as subject-verb disagreement, verb tense confusion, and double negatives and get right to the things that just befuddle me.

• Attaching unnecessary prepositions to the ends of sentences: "Where are you at?"
• Misusing punctuation: there's so much to say here, I'll just be brief and cry "woe the dignity of the hyphen and semi-colon!"
• Misusing the apostrophe for pluralisation ("There are several lady's in the shop." and "Be sure to visit 'Antique's of Reidsville'!") and when indicating possession ("Cox's Harley-Davidson" where "Cox' H-D" would suffice or "Lois's party" instead of "Lois' party"). Yes, 'Antique's of Reidsville' and 'Cox's Harley-Davidson' are real businesses that prominently display these blunders on signs, the latter with its name engraved in stone!
• Confusing homophones: there/their, your/you're, to/two/too.
• Abusing the subjunctive: saying "I wish that I was..." instead of "I wish that I were..." or "I wish that I would've done so and so" instead of "I wish that I had done so and so."
• Worst of all, being down-right sloppy: writing "should of" in place of "should've".

Driving is another arena that I find frustrating. I have a 40-minute commute, half of which is on a freeway. Others' driving habits shouldn't amaze or shock me at this point, since I've been a driver for more than half of my life, but I still can't help but get annoyed, frustrated, and sometimes even angry at behaviour on the roads.

• Poking along in the passing (left) lane, especially when the travel (centre or right) lane is wide open and, correspondingly, passing in the merge (right) lane when the passing lane is open.
• Failing to signal.
• Weaving in and out of traffic -- be patient and wait your turn!
• Sneaking through a yellow light at the last minute when traffic is already backed-up, thereby blocking the cross street -- that's just selfish and mean.
• Parking in the fire lane directly outside of a shop. This is just the worst driving sin (though perhaps not technically driving) around and the apex of laziness!

Of course, much of this is just my opinion and I'm sure that some will disagree and others will latch onto the "snob" moniker that I applied to myself earlier, but I just think that the world would be a nicer place and that things would operate much more smoothly if we all just paused to think about the real messages that we send to others with what we say and do. :J