Grammatical Pet Peeves

I have a lot of them, but I feel the need to comment on a two that have been bugging me lately.

First, "could of" is always grammatically wrong. Always. It's actually a contraction of "could have" which ends up as "could've". When spoken, yes, it might sound like "could of" but please, please, please, don't write it that way! There are obviously a few exceptions, like in dialogue, because dialogue has a lot more flexibility with respect to grammar. People don't speak in proper English - not even close, so realistic dialogue most times shouldn't be grammatically proper. But generally, "could of" in a book will make me cringe.

Next, is the much maligned apostrophe. I like the apostrophe, and I could write REAMS of posts about how to use the apostrophe properly and the myriad ways people throw it around, willy-nilly. But there's the thing... an apostrophe's function is to represent missing letters (as in contractions... oh, say... could've or don't) or to indication possession (Sarah's car or Matt's house). Sometimes it's used more colloquially, like 'course instead of "of course". And I've seen and used it as 'em instead of "them". Because the apostrophe represents missing letters. But the most recent grievance I've seen was a variation of 'em. But it was typed out as em' - more than once. Please, for the sake of my sanity, don't do this!

Of course, I'm not perfect, but yeah, sometimes things will get me in a tizzy and now, these are the culprits! I'm getting ready to go on a cruise starting Monday, so this is my short & sweet grammar lesson for today :)

KC Burn