Ten Things I Hate about the modern usage of English language

1. Would of/could of/ should of - no I'm not naming a Beverley Knight song. This is where people hear the compound word 'would've', assume it's a shortening of the words 'would' and 'of' rather than 'would' and 'have' and pronounce as such very clearly. Think about what the words actually mean!! An old manager of mine made this mistake once - I lost all respect for her instantly.

2. Like - this should be used in phrases such as, 'I like cake' or 'she looks like Jennifer Aniston' (for instance, I've never met anyone who looks like Jennifer Aniston, although I do like cake). It is not to be used in phrase such as, 'I was like so annoyed' or 'it's like what's going on?' I am guilty of this weird lingual phenomenon too and I am seriously considering starting a 'like' jar instead of a swear jar to purge myself of the hideous verbal disease.

3. Text language - if you're texting and running out of characters, fine, shorten away. But don't send me e-mails with words like gr8, lol or l8r, there's no character limit and therefore no justification. And if you actually write these words with pen and paper, well, you deserve some form of punishment.

4. Shock tactic language - people who swear or use language relating to potentially offensive matters just for the sake of it. It's neither big, clever nor funny, it's just a lazy use of the the gift of speech to get a bit of attention. If you want attention, learn to speak about interesting things.

5. The wandering apostrophe - a while back I went past a shop with a sign saying Baby Need's. I wanted to weep.

6. Their/they're/there - Their is a plural, third person possessive noun (if my grammar lessons serve me correctly), i.e. 'Jack and Jill went to their mother's house for tea.' They're is a shortening of 'they are', i.e. 'They're going to the zoo.' There is trickier, but generally it's an expression relating to place or an introduction to a clause or sentence, i.e. 'The bag's over there' or 'There are cookies in the oven.' Please, oh please, never muddle them up again.

7. Your/you're - in the words of Ross Geller, "Just so you know, Y O U apostrophe R E means you are. Y O U R MEANS YOUR!"

8. So - similar to like, this little word seems to pop up in the most inappropriate places. In fact, it is often combined with like in phrases such as, 'I was like so not happy about it' just to emphasise the hideousness of the incorrect usage of language. It is also often used at the start of a sentence, for instance, 'So I went to the shop yesterday ...' but that's not referring back to a previous statement about needing to buy something, oh no, that's the first sentence in the text! Horrible!

9. Innit - really, must I expand?

10. Effect/affect - another two words that are apparently interchangeable these days. Hence phrases like, 'I must stop playing so many computer games, it's effecting my eyes.' Really? It's producing or bringing into existence your eyes? That's some computer game.

Maybe I should be an English teacher ... no, I think I'd make the children cry. 

Ten Things I Hate about Christmas

1. The build-up - it's just October and Christmas stuff has been in the shops for weeks already. Who devotes three months of their life to Christmas preparations? Other than Santa of course
2. Family politics - when I was single and living at home it was so easy: Christmas dinner with Mum, go to see Dad in the evening, then see the extended family on Boxing Day. Now I have a husband and in-laws to consider too, and there's the juggling act of making sure me and my brothers will actually cross paths at some point. Arrgh!
3. Over-indulgence - we've all been there. It's the culinary climax of the year, you can't possibly refuse seconds. But then you end up watching repeats of 'The Two Ronnies' because you're too full even to lift the remote. Which brings me to ...
4. Rubbish Christmas TV - there's always a ridiculous soap wedding, a deluge of sitcom episodes even worse than usual, and then the obligatory films that everyone's heard of but nobody has ever actually managed to sit through
5. Novelty Christmas songs - Now let's get this straight, I'm not talking about Slade, Wizzard or any other Christmas-themed musical gems. I'm talking about the plethora of dreadful 'songs' (often covers) by cartoon characters or reality TV rejects. No time of year excuses that!!
6. Shopping for boys - Fact: Boys are horrible to shop for. Not only do I have a father and a husband, I have two brothers who also both have their birthdays around Christmas. That's six presents. Any inspiration? Otherwise they're all getting socks!!
7. The last day at work - the boss has said that you can go as soon as all the work is done. Which means everyone runs round like headless chickens, shouting at anyone who dares take a ten-minute lunch break and it takes you another hour to wind down from the stress anyway!!
8. Emotional blackmail - shops give you Christmas catalogues which convince you that you must buy everybody a gift, be it your family, your distant work colleagues, or even your pets! Sorry to break this to you, but even if you get him a little doggy Santa jacket, Rover still won't know that it's Christmas, or what Christmas even means!!
9. Christmas cards - I'm not really a card person. I just don't get it. You give someone
a card, they give you one back, ad infinitum. Wouldn't it be easier and less wasteful to just say "Merry Christmas!" and have done with it? Plus there's always that card you get on the last post day before Christmas from someone you've forgotten to send one to ...
10. The aftermath - at some point you must leave Christmas world and deal with the fairly useless food leftovers, the masses of wrapping paper, the presents you don't really want, need or have space for, and the fact that Christmas is basically the end of the year. Yes, another year has gone by, you've failed in your resolutions, you've gone nowhere in your career, it's cold and dark .... pass me those last chocolates!!

Ten things I hate about Leeds

To mark my second anniversary of living in Leeds!!

1. The lingo - If you ask for a bun in a tearoom, you'll get a cupcake. Ask for directions and you might get directed down a ginnel or snicket. A pretty baby is a bonny babby. And you're not treated well, you're 'tretten' well. Eh?
2. The accent - Now I'm very aware that my regular readers have Leeds accents and I should point out that some of the strains of the Leeds accent are quite nice to listen to. But go to some parts of Leeds (I daren't mention which) and my word, it's like listening to nails scraping a blackboard!
3. The architecture - There are parts of Leeds that are beautiful. But go to the city centre and you'll see beautiful old buildings squashed between ugly 1980's office blocks, and there are so many 'funky' new apartment towers going up that soon all that glass will be necessary to create any semblance of natural light!
4. The size - I'm from Lincoln, which is a nice compact little city. Leeds however is ridiculously sprawling. The big disadvantage being that when you end up only seeing your friends at work or wherever else you met them because they live so far away that to pop round for a cuppa would mean about an hour's journey!
5. Kirkstall Road - otherwise known in our office as 'Kirkstall f***ing Road' (but of course I'm too polite to say that), when trains are down you can very easily spend at least an hour crawling along this betarmacced hell in a bus. And what have they done to help matters? Put one of the shortest and most pointless bus lanes on one of the quietest bits of the road!!
6. Train travel - I think I've covered that one before!
7. House prices - I recently read an article in the 'Lincolnshire Echo' my Mum gave me which was ranting about how average house prices in Lincoln are now a whopping £135,000. My goodness, if only!!! In February the average house price in Leeds was £167,485. Unless you're prepared to live somewhere rather dubious, you don't get much for your money up here.
8. The Loop - the name for the city centre's one way system. I'm not even a driver, but when hubby's desperately trying to escape the centre I do find myself thinking 'surely there was a more straightforward way of solving congestion problems?'
9. Hills - my legs were raised in one of the flattest counties in Britain. They are certainly not designed to climb practically vertical inclines just to get home in the evening.
10. The fact that, try as I might and in spite of the above, I actually secretly love Leeds. Don't tell anyone.

Ten things I hate about my commute

1. Slow walkers - Picture the scene. You're running a little late. Your watch isn't very accurate so you don't know whether you'll catch the train. You speedwalk half a mile, turn into the narrow alleyway leading to the station and, oh, there's someone walking right in the middle, not allowing you past, at a frustratingly slow pace!

2. Day trippers on commuter trains - there they are in their jeans, planning their nice day out shopping, and saying 'oh look at all these people stood up, wouldn't you hate to do that every day?' Well there'd be fewer standing passengers if PEOPLE LIKE YOU WAITED UNTIL AFTER 9AM TO START SHOPPING!!!!

3. Seat hoggers - on my train, you get rows of three seats, facing each other. So what do you get? Two besuited middle-aged men in the window seats, two in the aisle seats, and two empty seats in between. And when they see more people coming on, do they move to allow you to sit easily in the aisle seat? No, you must push through the hard kneecaps if you dare to take a seat.

4. People having conversations really loudly on the train - I read on the train to and from work. It's my chance to escape from the fact that I'm either heading to a day of boredom or returning from one. So don't distract me from my escapism by talking about who walked into your hotel today!!

5. Annoying ringtones - Some I don't mind. But it's when it's a real tone of some awful song that only gets three bars in and gets stuck in your head for the rest of your day, and then is rammed home when the owner of such an irritating device keeps getting calls and hanging straight up. Just answer the phone and say, "Sorry I can't talk but there's a fellow commuter nearby who looks like she wants to kill me."

6. Unhelpful station announcements - "We are sorry to announce that the 0819 Northern service to Leeds is delayed." OK, well it's 0830 now, I'd spotted the delay, any idea when it'll bother to turn up?

7. Overexcited young people - One or two can be endearing. But when it's a gaggle of teenagers going to some school trip, and they think it's hilarious to shout 'tickets please' whenever the conductor passes through, now you're just taking the mick.

8. The 'bit wet' effect - OK fair enough, when the majority of Yorkshire was recently flooded, I could understand the cancellations. But surely we are a sophisticated enough nation to keep the trains running to schedule when it's just a normal amount of rain? Clearly not ...

9. Getting a bus - Usually linked to the 'bit wet' effect, which also makes buses run ridiculously slowly too. And you always, always end up sat near a smelly person.

10. Leeds station - I almost forgot, but it didn't entirely escape ... It's 8.40, I'm tired and probably a bit dizzy from being stood up or squashed between two businessmen, the last thing I need is to breathe in the stench from the various food outlets in Leeds station. Seriously, that smell can't come from anything edible. I'm never going near a Subway ever again.