Annoying spelling, galling grammar, irksome words, frustrating phrases

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"He have, sir." Is that correct?
 
dask said:
"He have, sir." Is that correct?
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No. As Toby says, it's likely to be an attempt at characterisation. It's not one I've noticed before, but using an odd/wrong tense is common to demonstrate dialect or less-educated speech eg "We was going" instead of "We were" or conversely "I were there" rather than "I was".


EDIT: to add to the Hare-Holmes brilliance, I would also point out the "said he" and though that might be a deliberate archaism, the gap between "porter" and the semi-colon (possibly also a gap before the question mark) is certainly not commonplace nowadays, not to mention the overabundance of commas.
 
The Judge said:
not to mention the overabundance of commas
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Then there are the gaps around some of the quotation marks.

The Aluminium Dagger by R. Austin Freeman is a short story published in 1909 in the collection, John Thorndyke's Cases (published in the United States as Dr. Thorndyke's Cases).

Apparently, Freeman made a contribution to the detective story genre by inventing, to quote his Wikipedia entry:
the inverted detective story (a crime fiction in which the commission of the crime is described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator, with the story then describing the detective's attempt to solve the mystery). This invention has been described as Freeman's most notable contribution to detective fiction.
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M. Robert Gibson said:
A thread, partly inspired by Astro Pen's Quizzed! thread, to vent and rant about all those misspelt (misspelled), misused, overused, fad, trendy words, phrases, spelling and grammar that seem to infest everywhere.


I'll start with one that annoys me so much, I wrote a mnemonic

Two words are 'a lot'
One word they are not.

And it would appear I'm not alone in finding that irritating

I have plenty more, but I'll give someone else a chance first before I get on a roll ;)
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M. Robert Gibson said:
A thread, partly inspired by Astro Pen's Quizzed! thread, to vent and rant about all those misspelt (misspelled), misused, overused, fad, trendy words, phrases, spelling and grammar that seem to infest everywhere.


I'll start with one that annoys me so much, I wrote a mnemonic

Two words are 'a lot'
One word they are not.

And it would appear I'm not alone in finding that irritating

I have plenty more, but I'll give someone else a chance first before I get on a roll ;)
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Were you allotted a double post? :giggle:
A similar one that really annoys me, and is probably already posted above, is infact instead of in fact.
 
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Pyan said:
I use a mechanical, automatic self-winding wristwatch, that winds itself up with the movement of that hand and wrist.

But there's another: wristwatch, not just watch...
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But I have have a pocket watch and a fob watch along with my wristwatch.
[Admittedly I rarely wear any two, let alone all three, at the same time]
 
Have I mentioned 'reach out' instead of just 'contact'
Anyway, here's a particularly bad example from this article on Ars Technica
(bolding is mine)

"Last month, Reddit said that any "good-faith actor" could reach out to Reddit to try to work with the company, linking to an online form. However, Colin Hayhurst, Mojeek's CEO, told me via email that he reached out to Reddit after he was blocked but that Reddit "did not respond to many messages and emails." He noted that since 404 Media's report, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman has reached out."
 
Ambrose said:
'Raise awareness' instead of 'tell people about'
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Someone claiming to be raising awareness (rather than simply passing on information) sounds as if they are:
  1. claiming to be doing more than they are, i.e. educating rather than informing, and may thus be due more kudos,
  2. inadvertently (or not) hinting that awareness of the recipient of the information wasn't previously up to scratch, but it now is (or it's getting there) due to the recipient having been educated,
and thus it sounds more than a little self-congratulatory (even if that isn't the intention behind using that wording).


By contrast, the passive tense version of this -- "X made me more aware of..." -- involves no such self-congratulation.
 
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