Here's one, oops two, I've encountered recently.
1. People saying "weary" when they mean "wary." Heard this on the news recently. It's easy to keep them straight. When caution is needed, you have to BEWARE of something, right? So you need to "be WARY" of it. When you're tired, exhausted, worn out, extremely
dreary, you're WEARY. See what I did there?
2. This, shockingly, also comes from our news anchor. Folks, you don't need to use a noun and a pronoun at the same time. I hear this sort of thing all the time: "The house, IT was a total loss." "The victim, HE died of his injuries." "The jury, IT will be sequestered." Don't do that. Use a pronoun (he, it, you, they, etc.) to TAKE THE PLACE OF a noun. Like this: "THE HOUSE caught fire about nine o'clock. IT was a total loss."
I actually have physical reactions to these things when I hear them. I flinch, my toes clench, my head jerks and I gasp for air. It would be bad enough to hear some average man on the street say them, but I could ignore it. The fact that a man, a
professional, someone who gets PAID to speak, to broadcast his voice over the airwaves, is so ignorant or careless of what are basically third-grade rules of grammar, is, to me, totally unconscionable! Where are his superiors, his editorial team? What's worse, another anchor, who has been there for years longer, is beginning to do the same thing!
