To wonder why the words "to" and "too" cause such confusion.

[sleepyjane]

I know it's not a first world problem but it's something that bugs me. I notice it a lot on social media, and it's not in the minority. Perhaps i'm TOO easily annoyed.

People have always mixed up words but, before Facebook and the internet etc, I didn’t have to see it that often.

How do you console a pedant?

They’re, their, there

I know the difference between too/to, affect/effect, of/have etc

I do slightly judge people who get them wrong consistently, although anyone can make an occasional typo especially on mn or fb (I proof read letters and emails I send to clients at work, I don’t give the same scrutiny to my social media posts). I had a manager once who constantly used “of” instead of “have” in emails. It’s one that doesn’t bother me in spoken English but in writing it’s irritating.

But then, English is a bloody ridiculous language to have so many homophones!

I also don’t remember grammar being a big focus when I was at school. I remember gcse English teachers still referring to “doing words” and “describing words” ffs! I don’t know if that was the just my school or if it was the prevailing attitude at the time. Whereas now even primary school children learn correct grammatical terminology.

I see "I was sat" or " I was stood" all the time, too.

Oh, well.

The good news is at some point, people learning English from other countries will have a better grasp of our grammar and be able to teach it to native speakers.

Some people's brains can't process this type of information. I struggle hugely with spelling and grammar. I used to be ashamed but i have realised that some people are great at it, other are not. I have other areas i excel in.

My work are amazing and i have a amazing supervisor who helps me.

Recently I’ve noticed more and more the misuse of “bear” and “bare”.

I have to be honest, I can’t fucking bear it. However, now I’ve bared my soul to you all I will retreat back to my corner (not alone, it seems ).

I have sometimes on reading back my typing found that I've substituted "know" and "no" for each other. I also make many other mistakes where I substitute a completely different word that sounds the same when spoken. It's not that I don't know (phew!) which is right, just that the wrong part of my brain seems to take control of my fingers as I type. I first found myself doing this in my forties, it's some sort of brain degeneration, I think.

Auto correct often substitutes the wrong there/their for me. It's used to hate it when I put the ' in It's not and constantly corrected it to it snot.

Because typos, mistakes and poor grammar.

Why?

In junior school in the 80s we didn’t do any grammar. Then in secondary school everyone else had done it in the private attatched junior school so I missed out again. I have tried to learn differences between have and has which dealt confuse me but the older I get the harder it is to learn these things.

There are many things I judge people on. Racism, homophobia, bigotry, wankerism. But not people whose experience of education has been less than ideal.

Something a lot of people don't think about, too, is the racism and classism inherent in some of these statements. You can't just assume that someone has had the same educational opportunities as you have, whether because they couldn't afford them, or because they were never even available.

And who decides what grammar is, anyway? The vast majority of our spelling and grammar bibles were written some time ago by old white men. I see people on the internet bashing AAVE all the time, for example, calling it "bad English" when in actuality it's a legitimate dialect of English, with grammatical rules of its own that are just as stringent as the rules of so-called "standard" English.

Let's be clear, I'm not accusing you of being racist or classist. I'm trying to point out these two, in my opinion very salient, points. I've had to learn that yes, I know the difference between to and too - but that I was lucky enough to a) have someone teach that to me, and b) be able to comprehend and retain it.

I'm not perfect either. There are certain linguistic foibles that bug the heck out of me, but I do my best to keep the previous thought in mind: that just because I know (and care) what that person spelled/wrote incorrectly, doesn't mean that person knows (or cares).

Language is about conveying a thought from your head into another person's head, whether by actions or by language, written or spoken. Language is an entirely arbitrary system of sounds we at one point chose to represent concepts. I think as long as you have successfully conveyed your thought to someone else, then you have successfully "languaged", so to speak, and everything else is just window dressing.

Because of dyslexia, autocorrect, & typos, generally. Really irks me people calling others stupid when they suffer with dyslexia.

I mark hundreds of books and essays all year where there and their are mixed up. If I ask the students which is which they can all tell me and use them correctly in sentences. They just don't bother proof reading (they admit this).
I imagine this is the same reason adults use the wrong word.

Discussion with colleagues suggests they get it right in English assignments they just don't think it matters in any other writing.

Of and off cause difficulty for some of the learners I teach, as in "one third of" vs "one third off". In some cases it's poor reading skills but I have had people tell me they mean the same thing, don't they...and that they sound the same.
The working out one third of anything is another sad story.

Dylan rhymes to with you in Mr Tambourine Man and loosing seems right if you follow common English pronunciation, so it's not surprising people make mistakes. Also, it's not as if life depends on it so does it matter if the meaning is conveyed? Though I do admit it's jarring and I'm judgy as fuck when I see mistakes (and hate myself when I realise I've done it, oh the shame the shame).

I weren't learned write words at school (80's- 90's) but theirs probs a name for thee's mistakes rite?

As the Wise One above put it, people are idiots.

Because people are idiots and don't care.

Really? You really don't know why people struggle with this or is snobbery afoot?

My generation (I'm early 40s) were the guinea pigs in an education experiment. I wasn't taught grammar in school, at least outside foreign language teaching. My grammar is largely self-taught, as an adult. The irony is that I went to a grammar school... and received and excellent education in many ways.

himalayan, it is not down to autocorrect. If you know how to spell the word you want autocorrect will not suggest an incorrect word for you. It is such a cop-out to blame autocorrect. It is to do with the British state education system.

Racism faith, seriously? I learnt to speak and write English in black Africa and the first thing that struck me about the British college I attended was the more limited vocabulary and spelling ability of my peers. My sister noticed the same thing though I'm not sure whether it was at the high-achieving independent sixth-form she attended or at university afterwards.

I can't comment on British independent schools, but I am sure the problem is widespread amongst those who attended state schools (the majority of the population) at least over a significant period in the past.

I think some people who care about the impression their grammar gives may take the trouble to work on it at university and thereafter. And maybe some people have well-educated vigilant parents who pick up on the issues when they are young. That is the only class element I can see.

It does seem to be more prevalent now, I also see many viscous circles, which makes me snigger.

"If you know how to spell the word you want autocorrect will not suggest an incorrect word for you"

Not true of my device, which will change 'well' to 'we'll', 'hell' to "he'll", 'ill' to 'I'll', 'its' to 'it's' and many, many more. And even when I've trained it to believe me, it periodically updates and we're (or 'were') back to Square One

Autocorrect

I'm seeing an awful lot of posters using the word 'appauling' and 'appauled' on here :S

Maybe they've typed it like that so many times now their spellcheck just accepts it as a word!