I don’t make a New Year’s resolution every year, but when I do make one, I take it seriously. It’s not a frivolous thing to do just to celebrate the holiday — I see it as a real chance to think about something I’m doing, or not doing, that I don’t like, and fix it. In the past I’ve been able to stick to my resolutions pretty well.
This year I’m going to make it a goal to improve my grammar. When I was in university I was such an obnoxious prig, I used to correct other people’s grammar all the time. I used to think I knew the English language better than most, and my biggest pet peeve at the time involved the improper use of the speculative tense after an “if.” Young people…sigh.
Now that our kids are learning to talk, it’s easy to see how they pick up on certain common phrasings that we use around the house, and having my mode of conversation reflected back at me has made me notice that my grammar is far from perfect (so sorry, 21-year-old self!).
In particular, I don’t like the fact that I often use the phrase “I never.” As in, “I never had breakfast this morning,” or “I never made it to the store.” Just typing out those phrases — totally typical of something I’d say in real life — has me shuddering with embarrassment.
I’m also making an effort to eliminate my use of the word “hopefully,” which is a common pet peeve for other grammar nuts. I often say stuff like, “Hopefully, we’ll be able to make it,” when what I should really say is, “I hope we will be able to make it.” Again, I’m blushing with embarrassment.
I know I also have a problem with split infinitives but that’ll have to be a lower priority.
Any other common grammar mistakes I should watch out for?
TurtleHead 
I think you meant to ask “are there any other common grammar mistakes for which I should watch out?”
Oh man. It’s going to be a long year.
I’m all about the resolutions. I take them really seriously, too. And for that reason, I try to pick things I know I can achieve.
This year my resolutions are looking to be along the lines of improving my conversation skills. In particular, I’m going to try
1. Not interrupting
2. Being more empathetic and supportive, less problem-solvy
3. Don’t repeat myself and try to get to the point faster
I don’t always wait for New Year’s to start acting on a resolution; I often have mid-year resolutions, too, especially if my New Year’s resolution is going well.
Okay, I realise I didn’t word that 3rd one correctly according to how I started the list. If we’re talking about grammar, I had better fix it:
3. Not repeating myself and getting to the point faster.
That was kind of my resolution of two years ago — try to get to the point when I talk, instead of verbalising my entire thought process.
It was probably the least successful of all my resolutions. I think I managed it for a couple of months, at most. Poor !
Hopefully when I was at your place I never made grammar mistakes like that. If I ever do, please feel free to point it out.
Some resolutions I think I should include in my list:
1) Offering my thoughts in short snippets rather than long monologues.
2) Avoiding repeating myself.
3) Not saying the same thing twice in a row, redundantly, when once would be quite enough.
4) Not taking myself too seriously (a definite occupational hazard that comes with studying law, or at least that’s my excuse).
5) Not over-explaining myself, meaning that sometimes I offer supporting arguments for things that are immediately apparent, and I keep going on long after the person has gotten the point, when I could have stopped much sooner, but instead I try to cover all possible angles and go into so much detail that I’m in danger of losing my audience. Yes, brevity is key. Not that people shouldn’t feel free to fully express themselves, just that they should consider the fact that maybe their audience (what does it say about me that I use the word “audience” to describe my conversational partners — yikes) totally gets what they’re saying and doesn’t need you to build a multi-layered, redundant, footnoted explanation of why you left the light on in the hallway, for example.