Pet Peeve

[blucougar]

I read a lot of fanfic. I know I can be remiss in reviewing, but I do read prolifically. Some have excellent grammar; some not so much, but the great ideas and interesting plots make up for it.

However, one thing that seems to crop up on a far too regular basis is the propensity for fic authors to mix up certain words, and there is one mix-up in particular that I've seen too many times now.

It's the way that many authors - too many authors - use the word "defiantly", when they should be writing the word "definitely".

Please, people, "defiantly" and "definitely" are two completely different words and I really don't understand how so many people can make the same mistake.

I'm sorry for the rant, and I certainly don't profess to having perfect grammar and spelling. I know my fics have plenty of errors. It's just that seeing this specific mistake being made over and over by lots of different people is kind of like fingernails down a chalkboard to me.

Please please please, in future when you write, if you don't do anything else, at least take care not to mix up these two words.

Definitely – NOT Defiantly

Comments

[jedidiplomat]

Not that I'm defending them, but I know when I got the two mixed up it wasn't that I didn't know the difference, it was that I couldn't spell definitely and spellcheck always came up with defiantly and while I would go "I'm pretty sure that's not how it's spelled......" I couldn't make it come up with anything better until I tried the actual paper dictionary.

So...just throwing that out there. I find myself chuckling when I see it and wonder how long the author fought with their spell check before giving up and going "FINE! maybe that IS how you spell it!"