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.

I don't get how people use bought and brought interchangeably: they are totally different words with different meanings. .

dudsville yes i really want to know, hence my post. Anything more constructive to add?

To and too I can get because they can sound the same.

Loose and lose however make no sense to me at all!

Yes and your and you're , argh OH gets it wrong all the time on text messages and it sets my teeth on edge

I think you type the sound you hear in your head sometimes, especially when in a rush.

I think sometimes it can be because people don’t read much, or didn’t read much as a child. If you read from a lot of different sources, then you can’t really fail to learn the difference, imo (obviously dyslexia and other LDs make this more difficult or impossible)

Do you mean it is a first world problem?

Because the English language is not taught rigorously and correctly in the island where it began.

Oh dear God. Loose and lose! I’ve even seen it on an article by a professor. Every other word was perfectly spelled, literate, contextual and highly technical long words, and then he put loose instead of lose! I’ve given up correcting people and hope the OED makes them interchangeable for the sake of my blood pressure.

I use MN on my phone, most often on a bus. I may drop an 'o' off 'too' every now and then. I definitely use lowercae i when i talk about myself

I don’t think that irs being smug to hope that people can post messages in a way that the grammar and spelling makes it possible to decipher them easily.

Not everyone is able to spell well, just as not everyone is able to do mental maths etc. That’s why we use spell checkers and calculators, although I know that they can be fallible.

What I do find difficult, is try to read a lengthy post that has no punctuation or paragraphs, making it almost impossible to decipher. People don’t generally speak in a lengthy stream of consciousness manner, without pause. It may be that a poster is wanting help, advice or support, but it can be really difficult to unpick the gist of the post.

I do think that much of it is due to trying to get things written in text form quickly and not checking afterwards. People make typos all the time, but the ‘loose’ ‘lose’ type mistake is not due to poor spelling I think.

A long text with no paras may be down to using the app Foxy as i think people find they uses paras, hit post and the paras disappear.

Reading online forums i don't give a toss about SPaG. In an article or something published - hell yes they should be perfect. Get a proof reader (me ) to check it.

Lose has a longer 'ooo' sound than loose (well, it does for me). Maybe than confuses people?

The thing is, generally speaking, the meaning is still conveyed. I did a teaching English as a foreign language course a few years ago. During the introductory lesson we talked about language and grammar etc. And how it is constantly changing and mostly agreed that text speak, slang etc were worth teaching. One student, an older man, took exception to this and left the course!

I often get momentarily irritated by grammar and spelling mistakes despite this but also make many myself.

Also, the way we write today is often quite disposable these days, texts, instagram etc. so maybe attitudes have changed.

Modern tech and assistive tech probably doesn't help. My DS (who is severely dyslexic) relies on speech to text tech for a lot of things (Dragon Speak or iPad). It isn't sophisticated enough to auto correct grammar so to, too, two and there, their, they're or your and you're etc tend to be pot luck. I think a lot of people who are genuinely dyslexic do struggle with this and many other homonyms.

Thinking about it i think "lose" and "loose" might annoy me even more.