Could have versus could of

Check annoys me no end when used by a Brit, it's CHEQUE and CHEQUEBOOK.

YANBU.

My inner pedant regularly screams "Go on then, conjugate the verb "to of"!"

It sets my teeth on edge.

You think that’s bad?

My teen DS was complaining yesterday that one of his teachers doesn’t know the difference between THERE, THEIR and THEY’RE and keeps using them in the wrong context. 🙈

That's accent not grammar.

@marshmallowfinder

They might actually realise they've been saying and writing it incorrectly and stop doing it. To save them from looking and sounding like a dick in the future? It's nothing to do with the poster trying to show their 'intelligence.' It's basic English and pretty easy to change when it's explained to you.

People with poor spelling and grammar aren’t going to have a sudden epiphany because someone on Mumsnet has pointed this out. They either know but don’t care, they struggle with spelling and grammar or they haven’t been taught.

Look, I find it unforgivable when this happens in official communication. But it really irritates me when the grammar police crawl all over Mumsnet threads looking for examples.

This is an informal discussion board designed for people to discuss their thoughts and concerns in a relaxed manner, not a press release from the Home Office. Anyone who claims they couldn’t understand a post because someone said “could of” instead of “could have” is lying. Its just an excuse for a bit of petty linguistic oneupmanship.

It's the use of "generally" instead of "genuinely" for me. Yes I know they sound and look familiar but come on, so do Dog and Dug but you manage not to say "I'm taking my dug for a walk".

Rightly or wrongly, I just assume that person isn't very bright.

Exactly. It’s people transcribing what they think they’re hearing, because they don’t have much or any correct standard English written sources in their day to day lives — their point of contact with the written word is online chat or WhatsApps from equivalently semi-literate friends. See also ‘rest bite’, ‘Chester draws’ etc. And ‘defiantly’, which appears to have originated as an autocorrect of a spelling mistake. People spelling ‘definitely’ as ‘definately’ got autocorrected to ‘defiantly’. Now, alas, many people appear to think ‘definitely’ is spelled ‘defiantly’.

It does my head in too. In one of my Facebook groups a guy puts it all the time. A few people have corrected him but he ignores them and still does it. Another is aloud for allowed. ' I wasn't aloud to do that when there' for example.

I share your pain!

I think that’s a borrowing from the US and it grates on me too when used by Brits. Similarly, ‘outside of’.

I don’t mind ACTUAL Americans saying this, and also ‘gotten’ (17th century English, as used by Shakespeare which has survived in the US), but it’s pretentious when used by British people.

Yep, and also "off of" drives me mad!

eg.
The cat was taken off of me.
She took the dress off of the rail.
I wiped the cream off of my face.

It's just everywhere, even in films. So scriptwriters must be actually writing it in.

While we’re here, don’t use ‘lead’ as a past tense. It's ‘led’.

I see it all the time even in print and never used to.

It depends. If your work has nothing to do with literacy, communication or precision in language then possibly not. But as a pp says, some people lack the literacy skills for the job they’re doing.

Good literacy is a bit like good general knowledge- not an indicator of intelligence but surely the corollary? Language is like any tool. It’s possible to use it approximately in most situations, but much better and a lot more satisfying and effective to actually get it right!

Britons.
One t.

It's not about feeling superior. It is about communicating clearly.
English is the main international language in the region and majority of ESL learners learn it differently, with bigger proportion of written language.

In the ESL grammar-based teaching, it is practically impossible to make this mistake, it just isn't the same thing for us, it looks wrong. And it is very hard to understand that so many Brittons don't know it. We've learnt it at school while learning our second or third language, what else have you spent all those time at school learning?

It’s pretty crap when that person is Head of Communications - believe me!

Surely when people say “could of” they mean “could’ve” which is actually “could have” - there’s no “of” about it.

Ode to a spell checker:

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a quay and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
It’s rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it’s weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Even more annoying is people using ‘His’ instead of ‘He’s’
I see it on a regular basis and they mean 2 completely different things!!

I have friends of seemingly average intelligence, who will text ‘could of’ etc. I despair.

Maybe I am AIBU to post here, but I see so many people use it incorrectly here. English is my second language, so if you find any mistakes, please go ahead and correct.

Yes you are because:

1. It's been done to death, dug up, resuscitated and done to death again.
2. This is AIBU, not school.

Well played though, adding that English is your second language as you know people will mention stones and glass houses

Being poor at spelling or grammar doesn't actually say anything about your intelligence or ability to do well in the workplace though.

The peasants that get it wrong won't have the reading comprehension to understand the OP.

Good for your husband that he’s been so successful in life - that’s great, and I’m glad his lack of secondary education hasn’t held him back.

But I don’t agree with his denigration of education. Just because it can’t automatically translate into money doesn’t mean it has no value.

We’ve never been high earners (public services) but we’re both highly educated and our lives are infinitely enriched by that. Education is always, always worth having whether it’s from schools and colleges or by your own efforts, and it can go on until the last day of your life.

I feel strongly about this!

I agree with pps saying that fewer people are reading books, and it could be that what they are reading may not be very literate. I do notice a fall in standards in areas where you wouldn’t have seen mistakes 30 years ago.