I have a pet hate.
Okay, okay, I actually have many pet hates, but this post refers to one in particular.
I'm a bit of a grammar and spelling nut. Yeah, I make mistakes (who doesn't?) but it really gets on my nerves when people are lazy with their writing. In particular, misuse of words.
There are so many examples of people using 'then' in place of 'than' it beggars belief.
I understand if English isn't your first language - to be fair, it's a damned complex language that evolved organically over several centuries, and has incorporated words from other languages, notably French and German, among others. Even worse, English has words that sound the same but have different meanings (eg. there, their and they're), which makes it even more confusing.
What really gets my goat, is misuse of words in sentences. Going from my earlier example, one is chronologically based (then - eg I will go for a walk, then have a shower), and the other is comparative, when you choose one thing over another (eg. I think I'll watch tv rather than going for a walk today).
Another I saw recently in an article on a tech site (I won't name and shame), was the use of weary instead of wary.
Maybe I'm being too harsh, but to be frankly honest, I take a lot of pride in my writing. To be sure, I don't like it when someone points out a mistake I've made, but it's not their fault. If it helps improve my writing, then it's a good thing.
Maybe it's linked with the rise in text-speech abbreviations, or maybe it's just sheer laziness. I don't know.
But I don't like it.
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