AIBU to die inside a little bit every time I see 'could of'?

[MeetMeInMontauk]

Yep, it's another sanctimonious grammar-Nazi thread, so I'm going to get in early and tell all the bleeding heart virtue signallers who usually jump on these threads to do one, straight out of the gate. I'm interested in the experiences of others regarding what appears to be some sort of epidemic (at least on Facebook) or a near-ubiquitous grammatical blind spot in modern written English. For context, I live in an upcoming area of the SE but with an inescapably working class heritage and large council estate community, although this trend is by no means limited to the local FB community pages and is something that I see from even university-educated friends. How has 'could of' snuck in almost unremarked? Obviously as a corruption of the enunciation of the contraction 'could've' when spoken, but even then it makes no sense, if given even the slightest thought. Noone is saying, for example, 'Did you of one of my biscuits?', but the application of 'could of' seems almost universal in some circles. I accept that its contextual use means that nearly everyone involved understands the meaning and intent, but it's an inaccuracy that appears to be gaining continued traction. Does it make anyone else cringe, or do I just need to get back in my cage and chill the fuck out?

The. Typo, apologies.

What is funny, is that none of you love language. You really don't. Or you wouldn't be taking such pleasure in belittling people who, in your own small minds, aren't as good as you.
You're not reading the thread, or at least not the comments made by the many people who do love language, have made. You continue making the same points over and over, at how your day is ruined when you see a spelling mistake. Most of the people on this thread trotting out the "I'm a pedant" would be given very short shrift by true pedants given their own pretty lacklustre use of SPaG. Hardly any of you can use punctuation, and few of you know what correct syntax is.

But it makes you feel better chortling at the fact that other people can't spell. Despite almost none of you knowing how to punctuate a sentence correctly- something that in my line of work would get you a red pen just as much as a could-of would.

A serious question. Mumsnet is about "making lives easier" right? Poster X has written "could of" on a thread. Poster Y is on a FB selling group and has a only-ever-seen-on-MN chester draws she wants to get rid of.

They flick through Active and they see this thread.

Have you really done them a service? Have you?

Of course there is something wrong with today's education system that poor spelling and grammar is rife. Though, actually, it's not today's- it's my generation's. We are the ones who didn't do SPaG at school. At my comprehensive school we had 6 week blocks of English (when we helped ourselves to ready made reading comprehension cards) and then 6 week blocks of woodwork. For 6 weeks in a row, English was not even on the syllabus.

Fear not, though. I'll continue pointing out all of your mistakes and errors. (You don't seem to know the difference between those either I've noticed) I'm sure none of you mind. You do keep saying "if I made a mistake, I'd want to know". So, I'll do my bit for you.

Gran22- you've missed out several commas. You don't know how to use semi-colons. Punctuation isn't an optional you know. There's nothing wrong with "bored of" either. Your adult DC are correct.

1forAll74, CarefullyAirbrushed- you need a punctuation lesson as well. Commas! And where they go in a sentence.

Zoflorabore's first sentence is all but unintelligible. It wouldn't need correcting, it would need completely re-writing.

I'm not sure if shabbyshibby's post of 22.08 is littered with errors in order to be "funny" or if it is genuinely a case of people in glass houses.

There. That's just the last 20 or so posts. No need to thank me. Lots of work to be done though before we can really feel so smug isn't there?

BookmeontheSud how old are you? I’m shocked that English was alternated with woodwork!

Also my SPaG is far from perfect but I have in the past dumbed down for mumsnet as part of the ‘disguise’! It makes it less likely that someone will identify me. Maybe that’s why there are so many Chester Draws.
‘His been’ awful to me seems like a new way of saying ‘He’s being’ that is emerging online. I’ve wondered if it is a deliberate abbbreviation.

I'm happy to learn how to punctuate, perhaps you could enlighten me as to where the commas should be and when and where semi-colons are appropriate Bookme?

Back on topic, the regular misuse of less and fewer makes my teeth itch.

Aspenforest. Thank you!
This is refreshing and funny.
Loved 'Chester drawers' and my pet hate which has been mentioned, the difference between ' discrete and 'discreet.
Forgive me if this has already been discussed upthread but what are people's views on commas before conjunctions, such as 'and and 'but'.
I was always taught not to add a comma but see it all the time.
Now, although a bit of a grammar pedant, I do not get screwed up about this.
There are plenty more examples to produce the rage.

Totally and completely agreed with you! I hate it, and it makes me cringe every time I read it. Also, folk who start a conversation, or a written comment with "SO" .... arrrgghhhh ! But the one which can make me shake with rage is "owned it" as in The little girl OWNED that dance floor" !! Did she? Did her parents rush out and buy it, just before she did her dance piece? double ARRGGHHH

Bored of
Aghhhh
Surely it's bored with ?

"Not knowing something is incorrect" certainly implies you are thinking they are a little bit ignorant, at least.

We're all ignorant about certain things.

No bean. Both "bored of" and "bored with" are perfectly correct. It's just a newer form. (In the same way that those pesky post-Elizabethans probably tutted when people stopped saying "thou hast")

Gran- you want an English lesson, go and buy yourself a basic writing skills book. You are one of the people on here unaware of your mistakes. Probably like those people you are making fun of.

User- your "paragraph" (littered with mistakes) has to be a piss-take, right? You're not seriously mocking other people while writing like that?

Hehe I love this post! Totally agree. With close family I will always correct. DH loves a Pacific instead of specific. I correct each and EVERY time. He also says “eh” instead of pardon and I either ignore him, or say “it’s pardon actually”

Ahhh, yes ' affect and 'effect'.

But, please let's keep this light hearted.
Not all of us has had the privilege of decent education ( and I'm not necessarily talking about elite/private education).
In the end, we all love, (shit and die).
Tolerance within irritation.
If it were my own children making these mistakes, I would correct them. If it was someone with whom I had no vested interest, I would let it go.
But ( surely shouldn't start a sentence with 'But?) language evolves and whilst I cringe often, I try to not let it affect me too much.
Sorry if that is 'preachy'. I'm only preaching to myself.

I have my own theory on the definitely/defiantly thing.

Where I live (west of Scotland), many people incorrectly pronounce the word as defin-ATE-ly with an emphasis on an "ate" sound which isn't there. So when they come to write it, they write "definately", the spell check recognises that they've made a mistake, and corrects it to "defiantly".

But that doesn't excuse them from not recognising that defiantly is a different word, pronounced in an entirely different way, and with a very different meaning.

In the daily mirror at the weekend!
Whilst not a quality paper I still expect them to get it right! Totally annoys me too

Grammar in some contexts it's called the Oxford comma but that only really appears in a list of three or more things though. I'd genuinely love a non sneery grammar thread - commas and semi colons in particular. I'm also from the State comp in the 80s school of education and we were taught very little grammar. Rules I do know I generally learned from my dad, who had a very working class background but 1950s grammar school education. Others I looked up, but only where I knew there was a rule to look up iyswim. How people can say this is not about background is very questionable. I also doubt that it would cause such strong feelings if there were no class judgements going on.

The Daily Mirror thing is just a list of comments from punters though, isn't it?

That's like expecting HQ to proofread all our posts before they print them.

@MurielTheSheepDog
Maybe overpronounce the difference whenever you use it? I learned english outside of uk, but that's how our teacher used to do it, though may not hanlve been intentional and it was just an accent (I still overpronounce it tbh).
They used to tell give us synonyms to learn too so we can see the difference. And I still do it to this day when I need to.
Affect: alter, change, disturb, influence, interest, involve, touch, upset
Effect: aftermath, consequence, development, event, fallout, issue, outcome, ramification, reaction

I think synonyms are the best, because it clearly shows the meaning of the word. It's like Pythagora's theorem. If you learned the actual wording, you could use it on triangle with x, f, s named sides not just a, b, c, but if you didn't it was harder.

Well that post went to hell Englishwise😂

Hangs her head in shame and goes to make that coffee she obviously needs

A few months back there was a thread on my Facebook feed about home schooling. Some people were being quite rude about it, putting people down that choose to do it.

Anyway one person wrote a really long post in support of home ed. To which someone replied ‘Couldn’t of put it better myself!’

Of course, I had to step in and say it’s could have, not could of. And if this person was a home educator herself, I sincerely hoped she was getting some external support and advice in teaching English.

i also think a lot of it is down to changing ways of reading. When I was a child or a teen there was no internet. If you weren't into reading books, then your options were things like Just 17 or Smash Hits. Maybe not the most worthy journalism, but at least written and proofread by professionals.

Nowadays you have Reddit, Twitter, internet forums on every subject under the sun and everyone can contribute. People are seeing "could of" or "chester draws" and accepting them as correct.

It is lovely to see a thread about the important things in life. As a previous poster said "not everyone had the benefit of a good education".

Personally, I find judgemental people much more annoying.

Piper- that's true. It also leads to people googling for grammar rules, and copying the first blogger's link that gets a hit.

Incidentally, for those genuinely curious about language, there are a fw threads on Pedants about less/fewer, and why the use of less isn't wrong nearly as many times as the blog-googlers think.

You do realise, don’t you op, that people are also judging youby the way you write?

You obviously rather fancy yourself as a good writer and aim to sound erudite and intelligent by what you write and how you write it. But unfortunately, you come across to me as an irredeemable sneering prig.

Both "bored of" and "bored with" are perfectly correct. It's just a newer form.

And interestingly, a very regional one - I’d never heard it until I moved here, and I’ve only occasionally heard it outside the UK since then, either. I’m used to hearing it now, but it still jars in writing.