As an English Major, or partial English Major, there are some aspects of life which just grind our gears—like cliches. Some of our pet peeves come from fellow English Majors, some from friends who cannot correctly form a sentence, and some stem from people who should know better. The things which irritate us are contradictory and hypocritical, as we are often guilty of them ourselves, but that does not mean we do not still find it annoying when other people do them. So here is a list of pet peeves all English Majors have:

The use of completely unnecessary and superfluous words.

For example: that. It is an unnecessary word. Why would you write “Pet Peeves That All English Majors Have,” when you could write “Pet Peeves All English Majors Have.” The second option is less wordy and more pleasant to both hear and read.

Com,mas,

It is impossible to keep track of every comma rule. After a while, all papers just end up, look,ing, like, t,h,i,s. Furthermore, the entire debate about the Oxford Comma, though entertaining, is pointless. Some people use it, some people do not, and that is okay.

Random plot twists—just kidding.

A good plot twist is a wonderful way to keep a reader interested, but when they come out of nowhere, a plot twist smacks the reader in the face. There needs to be some kind of foreshadowing, or else the twist just leaves the reader confused.

Professors expecting you to read three books in one day.

Professors honestly seem to think we have nothing to do but read and write. Sorry, teach, but it is not likely that I will actually read all of "Paradise Lost," the "Odyssey," and the "Canterbury Tales" in one weekend. And the five-page analysis on each? Forget it.

People pointing out a grammatical or spelling error you made puuurposefully.

Yes, I did end a sentence in a preposition. Yes, I did put a comma where it was unnecessary. Those were stylistic choices. They were purposeful. They add depth to the piece.

Errors in professional publikations.

There is nothing more frustrating than reading through an article published in an academic journal—or even reading something on Buzzfeed, Huffpost, or Odyssey—and finding a mistake. As soon as you notice the wrong form of “effect” being used, you cannot forget about it. That is suddenly the only thing that matters.

Inconsistent diction.

You will never understand why some papers read like the author opened a thesaurus and replaced half the words with something more complicated. Sentences like “The man dressed in black was wont to articulate his crux to whomever would listen” are the bane of your existence.

Friends asking you to edit their paper.

Just because you are an English Major does not mean 1) you want to be an editor or enjoy editing in any way 2) you want to spend your evening tearing apart your friend’s paper 3) you even have the time to edit their paper, considering you have four due the next day.

Emails from professors.

You send your professors inquiries with perfect grammar and syntax, and impeccable diction and format. They reply with “ok sounds good.” Why do we try?

Colloquial phrases in academic literature, yo.

Reading slang in a research paper or other professional publication is jarring. You become uncomfortable when you read a rhetorical question or casual use of “like” in an analysis of literary allusions.

People complaining about writer’s block.

This is the worst. How many successful authors complain about writer’s block? None. They work through it, just like you should now. Maybe if you stop writing based on ‘inspiration,’ you will be able to write better content more frequently.