Sipping expresso, I sat accrossed from my friend at Barnes and Nobles. I said, "I could care less if I talk to her again, irregardless if she wants to talk to me."I can butcher proper English as much as anybody, but the above two paragraphs cover some of my pet peeves.People drink espresso (not expresso) at Barnes and Noble, which doesn’t end in an "s." People around here say "accrossed" so much that I’ve found myself slipping it in sentences in place of across.If you "could care less" that means you actually care. You should say, "could not care less," to illustrate that something is low on the scale of concern.And irregardless is just a misuse of the word regardless. The trouble with the English language is it’s not dead. It changes every year with new additions to the dictionary and slight usage alterations. For instance, it’s perfectly OK to split infinitives by some people’s judgment. I was once taught that you couldn’t start sentences with conjunctions, but I frequently capitalize an "and" or "but."I mentioned a few pet peeves of mine, knowing that I probably do someone else’s, especially when speaking.I end sentences with prepositions. I know the difference between who and whom, but I rarely say "whom" aloud. I say "me" when I should say "I," and I probably say "good" to describe a verb, when I really mean "well."I’ve even been known to invent adjectives when I’m upset. Just off the top of my head, I remember writing bail instead of bale, and I’m sure there are countless other little flips or flubs that I regret.It’s too bad we dumb down ourselves for the sake of sounding a certain way, rather than being correct. … It’s probably too bad, also, that students are taught differently these days. I didn’t have to do sentence diagramming like previous generations did, and I’m sure people younger than I am haven’t even heard of it.Wherever the English language is going, at least I can say I could care less about writing well.