When I was nineteen, I inherited a pet peeve. I was at a party and we were on the subject of peeves that were pets and a guy said, "I hate it when people say anyways." I hadn't given it any thought before, but I then realized the stupidity of this non-word. And it has peeved me—and my pets—ever since. So, it gets the number one slot.
1. "Anyways."
I've already gone off about dashes, so I'll be brief.
2. Spaces surrounding em dashes.
When did it become okay to put spaces before and after dashes? I can't figure it out.
Read Great Expectations or Catcher in the Rye or the New Yorker—hell, read The Elements of Style by Strunk and White or the fucking Chicago Manual of Style.
3. Courier.
(The typeface, not people who deliver stuff.)
In a failed attempt to imitate the typewritten screenplays from days of yore, we somehow ended up donning this piece of shit font the industry standard for screenplays. As made apparent above, I have deep-rooted childhood dash issues. And guess what a hyphen looks like in Courier? This: "-"; an en dash? This: "-"; an em dash? This: "-".
Don't even get me started on Courier New.
4. "I could care less."
Well, I couldn't.
5. "Awe, cute."
It's probable that one could be in awe of cuteness. However, it's about 10,763 times more likely that what you meant to write was "Awwww... cute!" (The number of "w"s is subjective.) It's an onomatopoeia (a Scrabble player's wet dream that means "written interpretation of a sound"). Yes, I know that your spell-checker automatically changed it, but if I just went with everything my iPhone's spell-checker suggested, I'd have alienated most of my address book by now.
And, last:
6. "I'm nauseous."
I'll say.
Admittedly this is straight outta The Elements of Style and, equally admittedly, I've misused this word many times myself. However, after I learned the error of my ways and what it really means—it's worth repeating.
What you meant to say is "I'm nauseated." This indicates that you are sick to your stomach. To be "nauseous" is to cause others to be nauseated. Just like to be contagious causes others to be contagiated.
. . .
I could probably go on and on about you're/your, it's/its, there/their/they're and other things that are like a flea driving me up a chalkboard. But I have a feeling we've both got better things to do.
