I can find anyone’s mistake.
When folks misuse an adjective as an adverb, I mentally add, “-ly!” Yes, I mentally add the exclamation point; cannot let it go.
When someone picks up the wrong fork for his salad, I have to concentrate on my own salad or I forget to eat it.
When a word is misspelled in a published book, I mark it, if it’s my own copy.
When clothing colors are a bad match, when a car needs detailing, when a hand print (or, worse, a nose-and-forehead print) appears on my storm door, I notice it all. (And I say “for-red”, not “for-head”.)
If you find plates upside-down at the beginning of the service line in a self-serve restaurant, I’m the one who did that. Those plates needed rewashing.
My kids can tell you: I’m precise about particulars. They learned how to diagram sentences. They learned to distinguish between the “i”, the “:”, and the “!” in math. They learned the new names of the new countries in eastern Europe. They learned to spell before I let them learn to type, which came before I let them learn to use our computer.
They learned to say “-ly!”, mentally, whenever appropriate.
I cannot imagine how stressful that must have been. I worry about it, although I always attempted to make learning fun and exciting.
In fact, one of my kids recently told me of his thankfulness at being forced to learn spelling and typing first.
He’d noticed.
Someone else was hunt-pecking at a keyboard, someone employed to sit there and hunt-peck. He told me of his astonishment and the difficulty he had in concentrating on his own business. Hmm.
I am training myself to let some of it go, though. Wish I’d trained my kids to do that, too. It’s heavy, all this noticing and editing of other peoples’ goofs. Sometimes I just smile and keep going.
After all, I can spot anyone’s mistake.
Anyone’s but mine.
Home's Cool! 
And nothing annoys me more than what auto-correct gets it wrong, and makes me type “it’s” instead of “its”!
The only thing that annoys me more is when I get it wrong, myself, without any help from that horrid app…
Typos jump out at me. They also lurk in comments I make on other people’s blogs where I cannot correct them! I only say for-red to rhyme with horrid in the verse! The nursery rhyme came up this morning at Bible study. Sue
The little girl who had a little curl? My daddy used to tell me that one, about 64 years ago! 🙂
Most people will correct a typo for you if you ask. Some make corrections immediately as they find them. I go in stages, correcting for my commenters or not, as the mood hits me. I’m trying to be less OCD about it. :-\
🙂
I’m a bit of a stickler for grammar too. I just think it’s important. Clarity and meaning can be lost otherwise. There are famous examples throughout history where misplaced commas have changed the meaning of an important document and caused no end of problems. Have you read “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” by Lynne Truss? 🙂
Oh, DEAR–One of my favorite books! Loaned to me by my daughter, who’d borrowed it from a friend, who’d bought herself a new one, since she was sure she’d never see it again. The nature of the book. 🙂
Typos in published books don’t bug me as much as bad writing, but they still bug me.
Yep!
Grammar Nazi here!
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