I just have to start this thread out of total FRUSTRATION today - there are some words classified as 'collective nouns' that do NOT require the use of an 's' to demonstrate plurality. A few of the examples giving me a headache today are:

-Gossip (there is no such thing as GOSSIPS - ever - as in 'I heard some gossips' - OK, unless you're referring to a group of people in the midst of sharing gossip, but you know what I mean. I hope.)

-Advice (Advices? No!! No one will ever, ever offer you 'advices' - goodness gracious...)


(and PLEASE feel free to add to this list with your own! This is one of my biggest pet peeves when working online - people are SO LAZY with language these days.....)

Here's a link to Wikipedia's listing on the subject....

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Great reminder Tess, thanks! I especially like the link at the end of your mentioned Wikipedia article to the website Fun With Words: Collective Nouns describing the wide range of collective nouns used to describe groups of animals.

Who would have thought to refer to a group of jellyfish as a 'smack of jellyfish' or a group of penguins as a 'rookery of penguins'! Hilarious!

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Kate V. Kerans
Kerans Virtual Assistance

I hear ya! People do get really lax these days. Sometimes I wonder if they're trying to be 'cute' or if they just really don't know that those things aren't acceptable...I hope it's the former, for their sake!

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Tammi Metzler ~ The Write Associate
Free call: "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Grab Attention!"

People are definitely lax. I think it's the whole texting even though I never use any of those weird acronyms the "kids" use. I guess I'm just getting too old! My pet peeves are misusing words. Ex: Through and threw, read and red, too and two and to. Drives me nuts! Bye, By and Buy. Die and Dye. The list goes on and on....

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Janice Correa-Elite Business Services
"My Business is Your Business!"
www.elitebusinessonline.com

The possessive 's' is a problem too. I mean I see many putting VA's when in reality they mean VAs (collective not possessive) and this happens with so many other words as well.

My husband constantly rants about the 'superfluous apostrophe'. I can't tell you how many times we've seen business signs that put an apostrophe in where it just doesn't belong.

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Sue L Canfield
AwesomeAssistant.info
My Blog

I just received an email from an aspiring VA who writes:

'I'd like to offer my services. If you hire me to do some of your works for you I'll bring professional behavior to your business and bring you new clients. You can pay me for work which have been done how you like.'

...ummm.... no. Based solely on the poor grammar, no.

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Wow...that's all I can say! I've had a few people over the years contact me about editing opportunities that were about that bad, and it boggles my mind that they are really trying to find work as an editor when they have no concept of correct grammar. Just doesn't make sense!

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Tammi Metzler ~ The Write Associate
Free call: "How to Write Email Subject Lines That Grab Attention!"

I get approaches from those who want to take 'work of me' as they often put it. Like yeah, I want my clients to lose faith in what I do for them.

"Its" and "it's" is one that is crazy too....I saw something from a "big wig" online that said something about his services and talking about how "great its going to be" I looked at it 3 times. I was thinking about emailing him but thought it would be a bad idea.

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Rebecca Thompson
CLR Virtual Connection * fanTABulous fan pages