Things that really annoy me

- If you don't know how to spell a word, particularly if it is foreign, don't use it. Voila is not properly spelled "walla". It may, in some bizarrely non-French world, be pronounced "walla", but it isn't spelled that way.

- In the same vein, doozie is not spelled "doosie."

- The ellipsis is not the be-all and end-all of punctuation. Seriously. Trust me on this one. You can, in fact, use a period, or a comma, or no punctuation at all, or - in extreme situations - a semi-colon. You do not need to use ellipses. Ever. There is no conceivable use of an ellipse other than in quotation, where you are eliding (see how that works?) part of the quote. It may be used to represent hesitation in speech. If you are not speaking, in the portion of writing where you are using an ellipse, you are simply misusing punctuation. Reread Flowers for Algernon.

- Just because you can smash your fingers into the keyboard and come up with words that generally resemble English does not mean that you should do so. If you do, do not send it to me.