Thursday, February 7, 2013

Things That Annoy Me Thursday: Breath Vs Breathe

“I have a terrible cold. I can’t breath!”

I cringed.

And then typed, “You mean breathe?”

No. I didn’t do that. I wanted to though.

So many people write breath for breathe and it’s beginning to make my left eye twitch. Mind you, some are probably accidental. Lord knows I make plenty of mistakes. Some of the bloopers are thanks to auto correct. (My phone once changed I love you to I CHINESE you. I have no idea why and Tom was very confused.)

But I have this sneaking suspicion that some people believe that breath is the same thing as breathe.

It’s not.

“I’m out of BREATH.”

“My nose is stuffed up so I can’t BREATHE properly.”

Yes, I know it’s a silly thing to get worked up over. And I’m not REALLY worked up. It just…well, makes me twitch a bit as I mentioned before. It’s the same way I feel when people use your/you’re and their/there/they’re wrong. I tend to get antsy when the basics are used incorrectly and I’ve been told before that I’m being ridiculous.

Maybe so.

But seriously.

“Looking at John Krasinski takes my BREATH away.”

“I stuck my head in the bowl of melted chocolate and I couldn’t BREATHE.

24 comments:

  1. I have noticed an increasing amount of people misusing "then" and "than". I mean....wha??? Really?? Annoying.

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  2. I am irritated with lose/loose. Like when people say they are going to "loose" their mind! ARGH! That one drives me crazy!!

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  3. What - you suffocated in a bowl of chocolate? Eat faster!

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  4. So... Breath is more like a noun as in it's something. Breathe is the action of that noun. OMG I remembered that.

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  5. Glad I'm not the only one this irritates! I had a friend post the chest rub she is selling on facebook and right on the label she had the wrong word! I had to stop myself from commenting "For the love of God, have you never heard of proofing?!?!"

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  6. My great big ball of grammar crazy hinges on your/you're and its/it's.

    Oh, and accept/except affect/effect.

    I'd better stop here.

    Whether/weather.

    Blargh!!! See what I mean? GREAT big ball of crazy. Oish.

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  7. The English teacher me comes out sometimes, too. I'm not even an English teacher! There, their they're...your, you're. I think we are on the same page with this one...

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  8. I teach and my biggest pet peeve right now is where/were. So many of my students write that they "where going to spend the night at Johnny's house" and it drive me nuts! Of course there's always the there/their and they're, lose/loose and your/you're too. Completely understand your pain!

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  9. I feel your pain! It makes me crazy when people are too lazy to double check their stuff.

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  10. Oh, this drives me NUTS. But the one I see the most is people using your instead of you're. It takes A LOT of self control to not play grammar cop on facebook.

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  11. I feel that way about lose and loose.

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  12. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

    For years I've gone on record to anyone within shouting distance that this is the mistake that makes me the most insane!

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  13. Ha! I do that a lot in court and I'm rushed to do court orders... "...submit to random blood, breathe or urine tests.." Good thing I proofread! The one that drives me nuts is there/their/they're.

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  14. I couldn't agree with you more - I can't stand when people have horrible grammar.

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  15. So happy to be in such good company! Loose and lose are pretty high on my list.
    The biggest thing that gets me though is the people that correct my spelling mistakes ( yes I do make them usually from typing too fast) and then they go on to make even more colossal !@#$ ups on their page without even a whiff of correctness about them. Bah humbug!

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  16. What I cannot figure out is if everyone I know has always been grammatically challenged, or if it is a recent plague.

    Either way, I've had enough!!! It makes me feel like I can't BREATHE and it takes my BREATH away in frustration! ;)

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  17. Of course this is just the tip of the incorrect spelling iceberg. Incorrectly using insure/ensure really gets me…what makes it worse is that it’s often used incorrectly in a professional capacity! You would think that advertisers and manual writers would ENSURE that their materials were properly proofread.

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  18. I hear ya too!

    What makes MY left eye twitch? Having improperly formed words show up as acceptable.

    Irregardless? I hate that word. Regardless of what other people think, I think that Mr. Webster is wrong to put irregardless in his dictionary!

    I love that the Urban Dictionary defines irregardless as "used by people who ignorantly mean to say regardless"! Hahaha! I must know so many ignorant people!

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  19. Love it when someone gets worked up over little things because it makes me feel so much more normal.

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  20. I think there are a bunch of these errors going around. The one I make the mistake on all the time is lay vs lie.. to lie down or lay down... Toughy. My Dad calls me out everytime I make a mistake. I do have an exboyfriend that I'm still friends with who says-- lets all get toGATHER.... what are we gathering? Together dude. Glad I didn't end up with him! hah! New here-- hi! Your followers is at 1978 which is pretty cool, the year I was born but I'll kick it up to 1979.. :) hugs!

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  21. Loose/lose is one of my biggest peeves. I should have been an English teacher. Except I hate trying to teach anyone anything.

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  23. I agree some of those things can just get stuck in our craw... at work (I drive a 40' transit style school bus) I hear drivers on the two-way radio, can you call blah-blah school and have them hold 25 breakfastses... Really?? I keep wanting to write on the white board in the drivers room, 'The plural of breakfast, IS breakfasts, not breakfastses...' But of course I don't... I'm your newest follower and rss subscriber...

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