Strunk and White – Elements of Style
While we try to be entertaining in what Web Watch writes, we know that we may not be the best writer in general.
Hey, it happens. But at least we’re out there trying – and trying to use sound sentence structure and proper grammar along the way. With the occasional sentence fragment thrown in. For kicks.
So when we ran across this list of the TOP 25 GRAMMAR AND LANGUAGE MISTAKES, we knew that we might be in trouble for doing one of these in the past. We’ve posted some of our favorites from the list below the cut:
- “Then” instead of “Than”
- “Bated breath” vs “baited breath”. Web Watch knows that we are guilty of using the latter when we meant to use the former.
- “Accidently” vs “accidentally”. Again, another term Web Watch has apparently misused.
- “Literally”. This may be more of a verbal item – but when we hear “literally” used in everyday conversation, it really irks us — especially when it is used as a filler word in one’s sentence. It’s almost as ubiquitious as hearing people say “um” or “like” as they speak. It’s one turn of phrase that Web Watch would like to literally remove from usage.
- Redundancy. The “M” in ATM stands for “machine”. There is no need to say “ATM machine”. The linked article says that “personal favorite” is unnecessary to use, as “favorite” should be adequate enough. Web Watch would like to throw in “very unique” or “most unique” into the hat as well — if something is already unique, it can’t be MORE unique.
- “Irregardless”. Essentially, this word doesn’t exist. Use “regardless” instead.