Quiet <-> Quite is a pretty annoying error that I see quite often.

 

I rarely ever review with grammatical or spelling corrections because I'm of the mind that grammar is the writer's (they're not qualified to be called "authors") responsibility. If a story has persistently terrible grammar, I hit the back button.

I haven't come across a story with the aforementioned errors in a long time, though, mostly because I avoid the stories that appear from their summaries to have terrible plot-lines and the writers who make those errors are also the ones whose stories have terrible plot-lines. Oh, I also only browse the favs lists of the authors of my favourite stories and the stories I have on alert; I stay well clear from the clutter of the general archives.

Back when I still had an expansive list of "favourite" stories, the error I despised the most was (and still is), the use of "resemble" in place of "resent". ("Oh, I resemble that comment!")

To add to the list:

Correct ... Incorrect
opposite --> opesite
resent --> resemble
shudder --> shutter
lose --> loose
worse --> worst
sequel --> sequal
​

Feel free to play with them, Warlocke. I literally shuddered uncontrollably with laughter, reading your word-plays.


Speaking of bad grammar, I simply can't count the number of times I've had to grit my teeth as I scroll through DLP...

 

I should be good at deciphering since I've beta'd for you before, but...

Also, on topic: Wesley instead of Weasley and Alastair instead of Alastor. Not usually a canon slave, but those do get me somewhere soft and vulnerable.

 

This.

I suspect someone ripped Jeconais about this once and he went back and fixed it, but mangled the fonts in the process. Now his stories have stuff like: "Ron was a 'tard because Lucius had placed him under the Imperius."

 

I personally admit to myself that I've always been shit at spelling, but was at one time a hell of a lot worse. At one point, I've probably made every single one of these mistakes. It took me a year to realize cabinet is not cabnit, to give an example. Going back over my work, I frequently insult myself with great pleasure and fervor.

There is one type of mistake I absolutely can not stand, however. And that is when these people suddenly give people who are decidedly not British British accents. It makes me twitch when, say, Naruto calls people arseholes and his mother Mum and the like. I try and ignore it all but every once and a while it just makes me want to kill something or someone. The one time I ever actually called some particularly awful author on their mistakes, the ass reported me and I was kicked off the site. There's a reason why I don't write reviews any more. I can't... cater to these people and their delicate sensibilities anymore.

 

But when they're from the United States... I find they are the most frequent abusers of this.

 

Oh, lol, misread something completely. kekeke

 

Like I said: when you try to correct someone and then make an error, you just look like the bigger douchecanoe. And Sin goes ahead and proves it within a day.

Clap clap

At the end of the day, nit-picking over the minor shit is pointless. I've read stories where grammar and spelling are top notch and the plot was garbage. And I've read some pretty badly worded stories with some spotty dialogue and some amusing grammatical errors that are more than enjoyable.

 

What started as a refreshing proper grammar circle-jerk seems to have turned into a bizarre exercise in one-upmanship. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.

One a different note, I find lack of subject-verb agreement an eyesore, and regardless of people saying it's not a such a big deal, I notice it and it kills me. Another thing I find unreadable is when the author or, god forbid, the character insults someone's grammar and proceeds to do so with their own special brand of questionable grammar and word choice.

 

Most of what I see has already been covered, except for two things that I see constantly.

Crass and crash (I've been guilty of that one two or three times...)

And the most irritating one, it even occurs here far too often, is:

Canon and cannon.

 

Rogue != rouge.

That one pisses me off almost as much as a preteen fangirls who write mpreg yaoi fics.

 

Yeah, I try to cite where the error was, unless it's a mistake like there/their that the writer is repeating every single time they use the word. If they can't be bothered to figure that one out, I can't be bothered to cite each of the fifty times they made the same error.

Wow, see, if you try to do that at FFN, the majority of the people who post there cry about what a big jerk you are for pointing out their mistakes, and the other reviewers then reply with, "Don't listen to that idiot, your story is great!"

I can only joke so much about this subject before I just become despondent and have to go to my happy place.

The resent/resemble one is just bizarre. The only reason I can think of that people would do that is when they make the old (and usually tired), "Hey, I resemble that remark!" line a character uses as a self-deprecating joke.

Of course, if someone really is mistaking those two words, maybe they've seen that old joke so many times they've confused the meaning of the word 'resemble', which would be quite odd.

lose/loose drives me crazy, but I can at least sort of see why people do it. Even worse, in my opinion, is lose/loss. They neither look nor sound the same, how can you fuck that one up?

If I had a nickel for every time I've seen, "Well it's your lose." or "If he can't see that, then it's his lose." I'd be able to afford the aspirin for the headaches I get when I see that stupid-ass mistake.

The worse/worst one bugs me the most when it's used in situations like, "That's a worse case scenario." WORST, you asshat, WORST!

Another few of ones I hate are peek/peak/pique, quite/quiet and seem/seam.

Another mistake a lot of them make is saying, "I'm an author."

...when they clearly mean...

"I'm a self-important twat who has heard of neither spelling, nor grammar, who didn't so much write this supposed story as much as I squatted and shat it out of my great, yawning, prolapsed, asshole. Now watch me hold my lame 350-word chapters hostage in exchange for more ego-feeding reviews whilst I end every chapter with what I think is a compelling cliffhanger, then make it worse by using the insufferable term 'cliffie' as if that doesn't make me an even more intolerable jackass."

Another mistake I see all too often is "songfic" being confused for, "Please shoot me in the face and end the threat I pose to the IQ's of all mankind."

THIS.

AND THIS! Though your name makes me wonder about you.

 

That. Was the whole point of this thread. Now, if you would like to draw some attention to yourself, why don't you go fetch me some incredibly hilarious mistake in whatever fic you are reading, and post it here, so I, and whoever else is till reading this, can have a laugh at the author's expense.

like so:

taken from: rant.

Preemptive interrogant: did you make that yourself?

 

I get annoyed when people can't use the names properly.

Weasley - Wesley
Gabrielle - Gabriel

are the common errors that I've come across many times. But most probably the stories with the errors are just unworthy.

Crucio, Imperio and Avada Kedavra referred to as curses are probably the most annoying errors. The authors are so messed up that they don't know the difference between a curse and an incantation.

This might not be an error but still some people don't break paragraphs which urges to click the big green BACK button.

Some authors use the tactic of breaking paragraphs then and there after a couple of sentences so that the fic looks lengthy.

English with French accent (Fleur) and Bulgarian (Krum) totally sucks. 'If you don't know that type of accent, just leave it'. Instead they try and use something which they assume the aforementioned accents.

 

Every time I see someone write that, I want to go out and kill something. Reading about Harry loosing Sirius in a wave of post-OotP fics is basically a genocide.

Here's my favourite:

The worst part? I think it was deliberate on the author's part...

Oh, and the cannon/canon fuck-up is more of a burning down of some building than a murder for me, mostly 'cause I see it less often.

 

True words. Very rarely do I ever see accents done correctly. And do not get me started on how people portray Hagrid. Most of the time they either add some sort apostrophe ridden accent in, and then half way into the chapter decide that it's not worth there time and Stop. Infuriating, and a one way track to the back button.

 

Did anyone mention to/too? Too bloody common to even point out, I guess...