Grammer Frydai

What the hell?  Let's start a weekly blogthingee wherein I complain like a crotchety old man about grammar or spelling mistakes that piss me off.  I'll make this weekly-ish, and if you (both regular readers and the seven daily google-led switzer-stumblers) hate it, tough! 

First up:  Rediculous.  This has been popping up on the interwebs lately, in all manner of places.  Since I peruse lefty blogs for the most part, that is of course where I've seen it the most - diaries at Kos, comments at Slog...it's frickin' rediculous how often I see it!  Seriously, guys...it's spelled and pronounced ridiculous, with two i's.  It isn't red-iculous or re-diculous.  It's ridiculous.  *sigh*

Next on the docket:  Inappropriately, placed commas.  Good lord, how often I see this one from otherwise competent writers.  I see it on news sites, in editorials (how does this get past editors?!), occasionally even in books or magazines!  A comma has many uses - providing separation in lists, clauses, or (to keep it simple and easy for the writer to remember) simply where a natural pause appears in a phrase.  It does not, appear in places, just because you want it to.  Honestly, usually I can understand how people make mistakes (i.e. rediculous or loose/lose) - there's some underlying problems with the written language versus pronunciation that mistakes are inevitable, even if they should be avoided.  But I can't fathom how something as logical as a comma can be confusing for people.  The most vexing questions are, "do I use a comma before the last item in a list," (A: maybe) or, "what's the difference between an essential and non-essential clause," (A: I don't know either).  Other than that, it's extremely straightforward.  How can so many go so wrong???

Third:  Loose/lose.  As a frequent reader of Kos, I'm subjected to oodles of amateur conjecture about who has the greatest chance of winning elections.  Often, this is done by predicting who will NOT win (i.e., "I can't wait until Hillary looses Iowa!").  Here's how it works, kids:  You lose elections, you then turn your campaign staff loose to find new jobs.  Loose is the opposite of tight (or in the above example, the opposite of employed, but this is a vernacular usage.  You could also say, correctly but awkwardly, "loose your campaign staff"...meaning to release them).  Lose is the opposite of win.  Please make a note.

Okay, I know I'm not perfect.  I often write "the" when I mean "they", or "you" instead of "your".  I use parentheticals excessively, hyphens where they're not needed, semi-colons (which are apparently out of style) (see, more parentheticals), and I'm prone to run-on sentences.  I'm not Mr. Grammar, nor do I aspire to be.  But I know enough to avoid basic, obvious mistakes, and seeing large numbers of people repeat basic, obvious mistakes gets right the fuck under my skin. 

Hence, we'll do this weekly.  I'll try to keep track of grammar and spelling mistakes that piss me off through the week, and hopefully my treatment of them will get more interesting with time.  Remember, my blogging is still rusty!  Oh, and PS:  I'll happily take suggestions for grammar or spelling mistakes for Grammer Frydai!

Weekend = w00t.