each claiming to be discrete

I know about the phrase "went missing" in British literature. It is all well and appropriate in writing, but now it is getting to be so ubiquitous that all news people use it to describe a runaway, a car, anything that doesn't show up in 24 hours.

This is not England, for god's sake; use the American vernacular and stop trying to be high falutin' about how you can speak the "Queens' English".

Just a peeve of mine.

where he discovered the peripatetic writer biliously drinking lachrymose wine, the hegemony of the "cause culture" evident on his jacket and wrist, where ribbons and rubber bracelets colorfully crowded.

Better than being finite lovers, I suppose. (Hello, fellow math nerds!)

My pet peeve is people who don't use a comma in a list of things before the word "and." For example, “Today we bought condoms, film, and a bottle of tequila at the corner store.”

In a recent e-mail I received, someone actually said that a quote had been "illicited" from a vendor...

What I hate is when someone creates a possessive form of "you guys" as in "Is this your guyses banana?"

As a biologist I have the same reaction when someone claims something is bad for "the ecology." Ecology is a field of study, like biology, geology, and all the other -ologies. I doubt they mean that using plastic shopping bags is bad for the study of organisms and the way they interact with their environment. What people are trying to say is that plastic shopping bags are bad for the environment.

Why does it bother me so much? Because people in our country are so scientifically illiterate that it's painful to read or hear them debate important things like GM foods, global climate change, conservation, and myriad other subjects for which they don't even understand the basic terminology, let alone the subtle complexities.

I agree with most of the grammatical nitpicks already mentioned. My biggest nitpick, however, has not yet been discussed: the term 'proactive'. Grrrrrr. Something is either 'active' or it is not. The 'pro-' prefix is redundant! Please, please, please, people, I implore each and every one of you to stop using that godforsaken term before my head explodes.

How the hell is this done? Does it involve prescience?

Who versus That! Right on!

And, have you noticed people are starting to get sensitive to Who versus Whom? But many do not have a clue?

e.g. "I support people whom say, 'whom.'" They try, but they never learn.

"Stellaone - did you mean 'millenium'?"

Nope. She meant millennium, as did you.

I believe, according to the AP Stylebook, that leaving the comma out before "and" in a series is acceptable--most likely in an effort to save space and trouble typesetting in newspapers years ago.

The thing that bugs me is the use of "none" as a plural pronoun. None is a singular pronoun. For instance, it should be "none of the dogs has fleas" not "none of the dogs have fleas." However, the abuse of the word is so widespread that eventually it will be ok to use it for both. Same deal with "irregardless." At some point in the future there will be no rules at all.

I brace when I hear the "I could care less" misonmer, too.

They were a symbol of hope for the return of a loved one long before the Tony Orlando song. (Remember the movie "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" starring John Wayne?) And please note that the record was released just about the time that the POW's were coming home from Viet Nam. I was there when it first hit the charts, and there was a general feeling that the "prison" could mean the Hanoi Hilton as much as anything else since there was no direct reference as to why the guy was incarcerated and why he's getting out now. So there was a small-scale fad for the ribbons amongst the families and friends of the returnees.

Come the first Gulf War in 1991, a new wave of patriotic hype propelled the song and the ribbons into the forefront of pop culture once again. And for the last couple decades they've become a staple piece of home decor whenever the country seems to need them. More recently, they've morphed from actual ribbons (cloth or plastic) wrapped around actual trees to the familiar stick-ons based on the design of the AIDS ribbon. Somewhere there's a good deep-think story in all this...

Main Entry: pro·ac·tive

Pronunciation: (")prO-'ak-tiv

Function: adjective

1 [1pro-] : relating to, caused by, or being interference between previous learning and the recall or performance of later learning

2 [2pro- + reactive] : acting in anticipation of future problems, needs, or changes

- pro·ac·tive·ly adverb

The New Yorker has been spelling it "vender." Maybe that's technically acceptable (I haven't bothered to check) but it's yucky.

I'm from the South and my accent is entirely about the vowel sounds. I defy these Midwesterners who think me uneducated to catch me in a usage error. Meanwhile, these Midwesterners love to say "acrost!" I even heard the House Doctor (I think he's from California) say "acrost" on national television!

(scanning furiously for usage errors before I hit "send..." oh dear, where do I put the close-parentheseeeeee....)