I also receive many suggestions for additions. These are usually welcome, and I adopt many of them; but some involve points I have already covered in one way or another. If you would be so kind, please peruse the following list of commonly made suggestions before sending me your own.
You shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition.
Nonsense. See the second item under "Non-Errors."
You should say "Write to me" rather than "Write me."
This is just a matter of style, not correctness. In informal writing such as I use on this site, "write me" will do just fine.
A name which ends in an S needs an additional S after the apostrophe when it is made possessive, e.g., "Paul Brians's Page."
Some styles call for the extra S, some don't. I was forced by the publisher of my second book to follow this rule and I swore I would never do it again. I think it's ugly.
Add "ensure/insure."
Look under "assure/ensure/insure."
Dinner is done; people are finished.
I pronounce this an antiquated distinction rarely observed in modern speech. Nobody really supposes the speaker is saying he or she has been roasted to a turn. In older usage people said, "I have done" to indicate they had completed an action. "I am done" is not really so very different.
People should say a book is titled such-and-such rather than entitled.
No less a writer than Chaucer is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary as having used "entitled" in this sense, the very first meaning of the word listed by the OED. It may be a touch pretentious, but it's not wrong.
Please add [some particularly obscure word].
This site is concerned with common errors in English, not bizarre or esoteric ones, although I often enjoy reading about them. I admit to discussing some not-so-common errors if I find them amusing enough.
What is the correct spelling of _________?
Please try a dictionary first.
I was always taught X but all the authorities I've looked in say Y. What's happening to the English language?
It's changing--always has changed, and always will. When you reach the point that nobody seems to agree with your standard of usage any more, you may have simply been left behind. There is no ultimate authority in language--certainly not me--nor any measure of absolute "correctness." The best guide is the usage of literate and careful speakers and writers, and when they differ among themselves one has to make a choice as to which one prefers. My goal is to keep my readers' writing and speech from being laughed at or groaned over by average literate people.
How can you possibly approve of ___________? Your effrontery in caving in to this ignorant nonsense is appalling [ranting, raving, foaming at the mouth . . .].
It's odd how some people with high standards of correctness seem to have no notion of manners at all. You and I both know that I am not the most conservative of commentators on usage. If you want to make a logical case for a rule I don't accept, please do so politely.
Your list of terms would be easier to read if it were arranged in a bulleted list.
Indeed it was when I had it arranged that way; but the list was extremely difficult to navigate because when users returned to it from an individual page they had to scroll up or down a long distance to find where they had left off or wanted to go next. I could arrange the terms in a table, but since I am constantly adding to the list it would create extra work for me. The list is now arranged in Netscape 3 columns, but I have resisted inserting breaks between each item to promote compactness. It's a struggle to balance between legibility and navigational ease. If you can't see the columns, you need to upgrade to Netscape 3.0 or better. I have made the list of terms alphabetical to make navigation a bit easier. Note that you can always download and print off the entire site as a single text document to peruse at your leisure.
You should refer your readers to the on-line versions of Strunk and Fowler.
Well, I just did, didn't I? But not with enthusiasm. Because of copyright restrictions these are both very early editions (1918 and 1908!). If you're looking for confirmation of your views you may find solace, but the average reader has no way of knowing whether their advice still makes sense today. Would you use a 1908 dictionary to determine the meaning of a word now?
You left out one of my pet peeves!
Check my to do list first. I may simply not have gotten around to it yet.