Bacon challenged me to share my verbal pet peeves. The “weird phrases or things people say that drive [me] bonkers.” Let me begin with a note: It doesn’t take too much to make me go bonkers. But most things that irk me are grammar-related. So, here you go. My top three verbal pet peeves:

Seen as the past tense for See

I lived in the midwest for long enough to know that this isn’t so much of an intelligence thing as a regional thing, but it still drives me crazy any time someone uses “seen” as the past tense for “see.”

Example: I was walking down by the lake and I seen a huge deer.

You did not. You saw the deer. Seen is a past participle. I won’t get into all the nuts and bolts, but unless you are using “have, has, had, was, or were” before it, you should always use saw.

Supposably instead of Supposedly

Supposedly you know that you are trying to say….

Double negatives. 

When people speak in double negatives, it definitely drives me bonkers. This would include, but is not limited to “irregardless,” “didn’t see nothing,” and “ain’t got no.”

And this is semi-unrelated, but I came across it while I was meme-searching and I laughed so hard that I had to share. English is hard, guys.

 Oleander

Bacon: You taught piano for many moons. Please, tell us, what might we not expect about the life of a piano teacher?