The GrammarPhile Blog

I'd take the poll if I didn't have to sign up for the site first. I hope you'll divulge the most offensive errors.

Perhaps some of our readers will post their choices here so you'll be able to see them, Mary.

Passive voice is my pet peeve. I find that I am not able to accept statements made (verbally or written) in passive voice because I have no way to assess the validity of the statement. For example, "I was told to expect a raise this month." Compare this to "My supervisor told me to expect a raise this month." In the first case, it could have been the local bartender telling the speaker what to expect. 
 
Thanks for letting me vent.

I can't stand it when parts of a sentence are not parallel; e.g., The girls in the pageant flashed their best smile. Do all the girls share one big smile!? ; )

The writing mistake that drives me crazy is when somebody writes "your" instead of "you're". Another example is when somebody writes "there" instead of "their" or "they're".

The questions are: 
 
Homophone misuse Ex: accept vs except 
 
Punctuation abuse 
 
Grammar flubs Ex: Who vs. whom 
 
Cliches, passive voice, trite writing 
 
Other (Please share in the comments.)

Its v. it's ...stands out like a sore thumb when the wrong one is used.

The wandering apostrophe. I so often see 's on plurals. It seems to be the most confused usage, along with their/there's, your/you're. Makes me crazy enough to edit and return to sender.

I hate when people use the word it as a placeholder for an object just to make a complete sentence.

Depending on spell check which will accept the correct spelling of the wrong word. Examples: begin/being; sign/sing; below/bellow;