As I've said before, I have a HUGE playlist of all kinds of music: filk, show tunes, rock, classical, Celtic, oldies, etc. that I just leave running as background noise as I write. Neil Diamond's "Play Me" came up, and one of the HORRID bad grammar lyrics yanked me right out of my writing: "Songs she sang to me, songs she BRANG to me. . . ." ( Read more... )

How could I have forgotten this one? Nauseous/nauseated. I'd say 99 out of 100 people use this wrong. Almost every book I've ever read uses "nauseous" when they mean "nauseated." When I am sick to my stomach, feeling like I'm going to throw up, I'm nauseated. NOT nauseous (pronounced "nah'shus"). Nauseous means "sickening" as in disgusting or ( Read more... )

I'm full of them this week!

This one I've seen in a lot of fiction lately. Who/that. People will write "The boy THAT lost his shirt. . . ." rather than the correct "The boy WHO lost his shirt. . . ." Tons of people who post online, and people who write for websites, don't seem to understand this one.

I have a huge playlist of everything in my music library, which plays music randomly in the background while I write. One song (which I didn't even know we owned!) just played, and filled up all my EEEWWW! receptors. It's called "Lay, Lady, Lay." So, the improper useage is IN THE TITLE. Because the verse goes on to say, "Lay, lady, lay--lay ( Read more... )

I come up with these while I'm away from my computer, and then forget to write them down. But as I was doing data entry for the NAR and listening to a very eclectic assortment of music, I remembered a few more ( Read more... )

Okay, this is one that bugs me all the time. "I'll party till I drop." It's the "till" part that bothers me. It should be 'til as far as I know--it's short for "until" and other contractions in English get that lovely little apostrophe ( Read more... )