I’m a pedant.

No, not a paedo. A pedant.

Indeed, I’m unashamedly a pedant.

I’m not a full-blown, grammar-Nazi type of pedant. I understand that sometimes in our rapid-fire social media response environment, the occasional ‘your vs you’re’ oversight is going to happen. In fact I know I’ve done it myself, once.

No, what I cannot tolerate is blatant ignorance or downright laziness, or flagrant Americanisation*

*note my proper English spelling of ‘Americanisation’ vs ‘Americanization’. I will not be gratified by your American mother-tongues**

** Those who know me well, know this to be patently untrue, at least in the literal sense. Which leads me to the first of my pet peeves:

 

‘Misusing literally’

You say you ‘literally’ could eat a horse.

No, either you ‘figuratively’ could eat a horse, or you’re an obese horse-muncher. Either way, I don’t want to spend any more time in your presence.

 

‘Irregardless’

Despite the fact that it is not an actual word, can you believe that through sheer volume of misuse, enough thick people have brought this word into the popular vernacular? The irony is the literal interpretation is in direct contradiction to its intended use. In fact it is virtually a textbook example of irony. Prefix ir- and suffix -less, make ‘irregardless’ a double negative, rendering its usage quite redundant.

 

‘Detail-orientated’

Speaking of irony? Anyone who uses detail-orientated on their resume truly is not, by definition, detail-oriented. Another error in common use that shits me to tears.

 

‘I could care less’

Irony klaxons sound again. If your intention is to show that you do not care, adopting the phrase ‘I could care less’ shows that you do care, at least a little bit, in order for you to have the capacity to ‘care less’.

Here is David Mitchell explaining it, rather well, along with highlighting some other quaint, American bastardisations:

‘Supposably’

No. While ‘supposably’ is technically a word, albeit an obscure one, context dictates that you really should use ‘supposedly’ every day of the week, and twice on Sundays. Supposedly and supposably are not the same thing. So stop it, fucktard.

 

‘Snuck’

Sorry, ‘snuck’ is not a word, despite it having ‘sneaked’ into the vernacular. If ‘snuck’ is a sign of the evolution of our language, then I think I’m going to have to become a creationist… or go live in a cave… or both.

 

‘Expresso’

This is not a coffee beverage, no matter how briskly it is served. And I know you’re not French, so don’t try it on.

 

People who say ‘arks’ instead of ‘ask’

This really arks me up. What are we, in kindergarten? If I let that slide, you’ll soon be asking me to ‘pwetty pwease, take me the ‘hop-spital’.

 

‘Could of’, ‘Should of’, ‘Would of’

No, no and for fuck’s sake, no! It’s ‘have’ people!

‘Have’ is a verb. ‘Of’ is a preposition. Verbs are action words. Prepositions provide the relationship between words. For example, “I should ‘have’ run away from the pedant, before he chided me to within an inch ‘of’ my life”. See the difference? If not, you should probably start running.

I understand the complexities of written versus spoken English, in that you may think the contraction ‘could’ve’ sounds vaguely like ‘could of’. Or maybe you’re not thinking at all? That’s a distinct possibility.

The only time it is correct to use ‘could of’, is if you were perhaps to ask:

“Could ‘of’ be used to replace ‘have’ in this instance?”

Even then, the answer is no.

 

‘Useless Acronyms’

Whenever someone enunciates an acronym that contains a greater number of syllables than the component words from which the acronym is comprised, it helps me to understand why the aliens continue to fly straight past us without stopping in for tea.

A prime example is the “www” used in URL’s. “Double-u, double-u, double-u” uses thrice the number of syllables as “world wide web”. So don’t fucking say it! It’s tautologous once you get to the domain anyway. So instead of leading in with ‘double-u, double-u, double-u dot’, just say ‘pornhub dot com’. Capiche?

Now to conclude (while I’m ranting about acronyms). You know what really gets my goat (aside from goat poachers)?

 

‘YOLO’

I put the blame for this one squarely on your shoulders, Drake. I hope Madonna gave you rabies.

Dear reader, use YOLO in my vicinity, and you may soon come to realise just how short life is.

One small codicil. I will allow cats to use YOLNT. They’ve earned it. Up-bup-bup-bup-bup. Don’t say ‘earnt’, or I’ll hurt you.

*leans in to whisper*

And listen closely – I’ve hurt people before, and not one of them has come back and asked me to please hurt them again…