IWSGPet peeves; something I don’t really have, save for badly edited books and wrong homophones.  But this is the first Wednesday of the month, and it’s Insecure Writers Support Group, so I’ll go with the flow.

I’d like to thank our co-hosts this month:

Christine Rains
Dolarah @ Book Lover
Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor
Yvonne Ventresca
LG Keltner

Question: What are your pet peeves when reading/writing/editing?

Pet peeves in writing:

  • continually mistyping words I know perfectly well, mainly because one hand works faster than the other
  • losing a great thread because the telephone rang (or similar)
  • my ‘timeout’ software telling me to take a ten minute break when I’m in full flow.  Especially the second time it does it (they turn up every ninety minutes, so I really do need to take those breaks).

Pet peeves in reading:

  • I get incensed with people using the wrong words, usually homophones, words that sound the same but are spelled differently.  For Pete’s sake, don’t people KNOW these things?  What was the editor thinking?  The worst one is reign for rein, which drives me nuts, because it is SO COMMON in US authored books. You reign over a country (if you are a king or queen); you rein in your temper, horse, feelings, or whatever, because reins are what controls a horse, and that transfers through the language to controlling everything else you can rein in.  At least they don’t mix it up with rain, I suppose.
  • Any other grammar issue that should have been picked up (as opposed to stylistic issues).  It really shows ignorance of grammar, as well as poor editing.

Pet peeves in editing:

  • my editor is always right
  • I am always right
  • my editor is always righter than I am
  • editing is far too painful.

What about you?  Any pet peeves you’d like to reveal?

 

#IWSG | Pet peeves when writing or reading
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13 thoughts on “#IWSG | Pet peeves when writing or reading

  • 2 August, 2017 at 5:49 pm
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    Writers have to have those homophones under control! I hear what you’re saying about those mistyped words. My brain must be five words ahead of my fingers because I do that all the time.

    • 2 August, 2017 at 8:19 pm
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      I think you’re right, C – but although it definitely used to be the brain working too fast, I now mistype words when I’m writing them!! Same old typos 🙂

  • 3 August, 2017 at 1:29 am
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    Have to agree with all of those. I have certain words I can’t seem to type right for anything. And I get all crinkly over misused words (yes, homonyms are the worst).

    And I love your list of editing peeves 🙂

    • 3 August, 2017 at 9:57 am
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      In a way, the words you know you mistype are easy – you can search and replace on them. I constantly had a problem with manager, typing manger. That’s easy. Leaving the l out of public can be embarrassing. More difficult is my other biggest problem – typing form for from and vice versa. It’s so reliable I can guarantee I’ll type the wrong one. That means a lot of painstaking work checking through the MS – but well worth it! I’ll even type infromation…

      I thought you might like my editing peeves 🙂

  • 3 August, 2017 at 2:54 am
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    I hate when I mis-type things as well.

    • 3 August, 2017 at 2:55 am
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      Also — thanks for visiting my blog today and for the Twitter follow! 🙂

  • 3 August, 2017 at 8:51 am
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    Hi Joanna – my brain types away – the fingers do something different and I’m constantly backspacing and correcting – but I too get irritated by common errors when people should know better … and I’m not always good at checking what I’ve written … missed a word out – or something else, that I should have corrected – that annoys me! … cheers Hilary

    • 3 August, 2017 at 10:00 am
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      I have started using left-click on my Mac to get it to correct the words for me, especially if I’ve done more than transpose two letters. Leaving words out is a classic that is almost impossible for the self-editor to correct without reading it aloud. Now THAT works!

  • 3 August, 2017 at 5:29 pm
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    Pet peeve: writers who abuse the semicolon and employ dangling participles. You know who you are.

  • 5 August, 2017 at 2:51 am
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    Wrong word usage seems to be popular pet peeve today.

    Ha, I think one of my hands types faster than the other too.

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