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?

I'm also from the State comp in the 80s school of education and we were taught very little grammar

Same here. I remember one english teacher telling the class “to get a GCSE “A” you need to be able to use a semi colon correctly”. I waited for the lesson on how to do just that, but it never happened.

It wasn’t until I got a job with an Eton educated colleague that I realised the extent of all the rules within written english, and that there was logic behind them. Mostly! My spag is reasonable as I was a voracious reader as a child so kind of absorbed stuff.

English is complicated. I didn’t study English past GCSE so as bookme is taking such delight in pointing out, I do make plenty of mistakes if applying each and every spag rule in the language.

People these days seem to write as they hear words “rest bite” etc. Maybe with the decline in books people aren't reading and connecting sounds and written words. I do find as pp said many social media posts make far more sense if read mentally in the local accent. “Ano” and “noor” took me ages to figure out until I switched accent and realised they meant “I know” and “no”.

YADNBU

I am hard of hearing. I rely on the written word as much of my communication is through e-mail, text, social media and the like.

It is almost impossible to understand some social media stuff as I can’t connect the sounds with the words to figure out what they mean.

Interestingly stuff written by dyslexics I find perfectly readable. The words and letters tend to be there, just maybe not in the usual order . When the words aren’t even there I don’t know where to start.

It's a shame but I do get it: 'could've' does sound like 'could of' and taking aside that obviously not everyone finds reading and writing as easy as others and people have issues such as dyslexia, unfortunately many people are probably not that bothered about the niceties of spelling/grammar/punctuation as long as they can express what they are trying to say.

Seen on a local FB page

"I want to get a litel dog. Sank like a cherwarwer. Do any one no were I can get it?"

YADNBU

I can't stand when something 'effects' instead of affects. Makes my teeth itch!

im also from the State comp in the 80s school of education and we were taught very little grammar

Me too. Remember doing the very basics of noun, adjective, verb at primary but no more than that. It really started to hold me back when I started studying French and Spanish - how do you get your head around subject and object prepositions in a foreign language when you've never been told how to find the subject or object in your own language?

Having said that, things like there/they're/their and apostrophes were drummed into us.

Thank you, longestlurker,
I didn't know that. And the poster who mentioned the effect of the internet...spot on.
I love language but am prepared to accept, change and evolve. That said, I will stick to my ( hopefully and perceived) correct usage and be prepared to be but right.

'put' right

BookMe yes, my post at 22.08 was deliberately littered with errors to illustrate how people write/text phonetically

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

After a question mark, or an exclamation mark, or a full stop then the next word should have a Capital letter to start the new sentence. (As in Confused.) whoops.

Several of us "users" are also confused as to which "user" you are alluding to. Perhaps you haven't read all the posts from the various users, using "user" as a name.

BookMe 'Punctuation isn't an optional you know'
Isn't an optional what?

My grown son says 'I seen'

Keeps doing it however many times I correct him.

shabby- of course it was. I believe you...

Nothing wrong with my sentence. Look up the meanings/usage of option/optional. (Not in the first google hit you get to though, I beg you- in a good full sized advanced English dictionary)

User- you're the only one on this thread with such poor English. There were far more errors than the capital letter one. Glass houses and Muphry strike again.

However, to clarify, Shabby- I meant (and said) your post of 22.08. Not your post from an hour later.

I am confused about "an optional". It's an adjective and so it shouldn't have "an" unles it's followed by noun?
As in "an optional thing".

*unless🙄

Noun ellipsis as a stylistic device. It would have been clumsy to say "is not an optional option" I think.

Optional is, however, also a noun.

Noun ellipsis as a stylistic device. It would have been clumsy to say "is not an optional option" I think.

This isn’t the sort of phrase where noun ellipsis can be used effectively, though. Noun ellipsis has fairly limited application - as you’ve demonstrated, trying to shoehorn it in outside of those areas is clunky and distracting the reader.

Oh. Learning something new every day.

There is nothing wrong with “I sat...”. It is the past tense of “sit”!! The expression causing the verbal fisticuffs is “I was sat...”

Let’s get it right!

Muphry??

Please explain.

Maybe with the decline in books people aren't reading and connecting sounds and written words

People are reading more books than ever. Especially the under 30s.

I can't stand when something 'effects' instead of affects. Makes my teeth itch!

As several posters have pointed out earlier in the thread, "effect" is also a verb.

To defend teaching colleagues from the '80s, strict grammar rules, like multiplication tables, were frowned upon by 'experts', hence it's come as a huge shock now that they're back in fashion, many young teachers didn't learn them at school. Having said that, looking at some of the current rules, there are terms used in our granddaughter's homework which I've never heard of and I consider myself quite literate. That of course should have read 'of which I have never heard' how dare I put a preposition at the end of a clause, a standard of English up with which we will not put. (Thanks WSC)