I should of known...

[UnaCorda]

Yes, the title is deliberate - sorry to have been clickbaity.

Expecting to be flamed although am trying not to be offensive, but this has been bugging me. Can anyone suggest why certain otherwise apparently well-educated people make up their own grammar rules?

I'm thinking of things (all of which I've seen "committed" by numerous people) such as deciding "thank you" should be hyphenated, or separating sentences or clauses with ellipses rather than a comma/semicolon/full stop, or leaving a space before exclamation and question marks, etc. (there are probably others).

I'm not having a pop at anyone who is dyslexic, or didn't have access to a decent education or who is writing in a very relaxed way because the context is informal. More trying to understand why some people seem to follow their own special set of grammar and punctuation rules which are consistent, but wrong.

I see punctuation as a way of getting across the inflections that you can hear in speech, so I don't know why you would want to fuck about with that and make your meaning unclear in the process.

(And apologies that this isn't in Pedants' Corner, but there's hardly any traffic there.)

Can someone explain the laid/ lay thing and why?

They are two different verbs: to lie and to lay. The confusion is that they sound similar and that there is some overlap in the conjugation. You cannot lay on something (although you can lay something on something). In short: you lie on a bed but you lay an egg.

I lie, he lies; I lay, he lay; I have lain, he has lain; I have been lying, he has been lying.
I lay, he lays; I laid, he laid; I have laid, he has laid; I have been laying, he has been laying.

Also "led" is not from the verb "to lie", it is from the verb "to lead".

Please correct if I have got this wrong!

How difficult is it to pay attention in grammar class?

All I remember in English lessons were reading books and writing stories.

I remember one lesson we learned what alliteration, onomatopoeia, and a metaphor were.

Maybe I had a bad education.

I also learned the nuclear model of the atom. I still remember it and did a Science degree.

My dd knows much more grammar than me after just doing her SATS.

Totally with you. This one is prevalent...

'... pacifically....'

'It's 'Specifically''

As a secondary English teacher, I spend most of my life having to identify, point out and correct mistakes like this. I really struggle on social media because there are so many errors which I can't help but notice, and I know better than to point them out, so I just suffer in silence!

I have some particular pet hates - "of" instead of "have" is an obvious one, but most of my students don't do that, to be fair. My particular bugbear at the moment is the ones who use "however" when they mean "but".

I also really hate "text" used as if it were the past tense of "to text".

I have noticed a lot of passed instead of past on here recently. It seems to be quite a new thing.

Sorry, dropped my laptop as the big cat chased the little cat and she bolted via my bare shoulders!

I struggle to understand why 'could of', 'should of' and 'would of' are so commonly used.

Think of the natural progression:
'I have (done this)'
'I could have (done that)'
'I would have (done something else)'
'I should have (done it differently)'

Nobody would say, 'I OF (done this)', so why do they say, 'I could OF'?

Another massive irritation, for several decades, is that my ex-husband was expensively educated yet even now, at 60, hyphenates 'to-day', 'to-night', 'to-morrow', as well as 'thank-you'.

Oh dear, sorry for the unnecessary apology. I thought I had posted an incomplete sentence!

This is an education.

What is the difference between but and however ?

I think it’s because of the shortened version being used so
Could’ve
Should’ve
Would’ve
Then people mistakenly hear and think it’s of

Should've (should have) sounds verbally like 'Should of'. It's just lazy vernacular. So they write it as it sounds and assume it's correct.

I once went to college with a very, very, very Scottish girl (almost totally unable to understand her, and I'm scouse so can understand almost every accent at any speed that exists) and she used to write her English Language projects as she would speak 😳 It didn't go down too well with the tutors.

OMG yes should of instead of should have.
And aks instead of ask....what's that all about?

Wasn't there a pop song called, 'Could-a, Would-a, Should-a'?

When did starting a sentence with 'So' become acceptable? It's bad enough in speech, but awful in writing!

The use of “of” instead of “have” as in your title.

So you're not happy Yourwinter?

Humm. I kind of get what you are saying, but to be honest writing has to be really bad for me to not understand someone's meaning at all. Pointing out grammatical errors is a bit rude and comes across as a bit pompous and elitist to me. What you say is surely more important than how you say it 90% of the time.

Yourwinter It's could have, but abbreviated to could've, which sounds like could of. If you've not really seen it written down you could think it was could of. That's where the error comes from.

I don't remember being taught any grammar at school other then verb, noun, adverb, adjective. It's very different in schools now. I would imagine many people my age have had a similar experience.

I think people should follow grammatical rules, however, they often don't.

^ This is an example of one of my most hated types of sentence which is fairly common when people use the word 'however'.
Semi-colons are the answer to nearly everything!

Oh, and lack of hyphens does my head in too. It's not "gluten, sugar and dairy free". Or "your must have buys".

There is a difference between could of and could've and should of and should've......it's just lazy English.

Lately I've been seeing "his" instead of "he's".
I blame the autocorrect generation

YANBU OP; there is no excuse!

For me the thing that grates most is 'I was sat ... ' or 'I was stood'. It's so widespread that I fear it's become acceptable. I heard an author speaking on Radio 4 today and he said it, as do many presenters and journalists on Radio 4. If they say it then I really think there is no hope. I know that language evolves and all that, but I wish it wouldn't!

And it got me wondering, as an aside, as it was an author speaking, about proof reading. Is it the job of a proof reader to correct such things, even if that is eliminating the 'authentic' voice of the author? Are authors 'allowed' to write ungrammatically if that is indeed how they speak? Does anyone know?

Well, here is my sense of how the logic works for some people: readingmedievalbooks.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/i-should-of-known-julian-of-norwich-and-the-venerable-history-of-dodgy-auxiliary-verbs/

Your argument that punctuation is designed to communicate the 'inflections of speech' doesn't work. Punctuation has always been used for this purpose, but if you look back 600, 400 or even 200 years, you will find people disagree as to how to punctuate. Punctuation follows a much, much stricter set of conventions than those that govern speech, and punctuation is not a reliable guide for speech.

I have yet to see evidence that stricter rules make for clearer speech; nor do I believe that clarity is a particularly important goal. Imagine most great works of literature re-written for 'clarity' or 'correct punctuation'! It'd be like asking the owners of Sissinghurst to grub up the garden and plant rows of raspberry ripple petunias in six inch wide grids.

Those of you inclined to think that the past tense of text is texted (and I agree with you), why do you think the use of text for the past tense is so common? I think there's something interesting going on (just as the past tense of cut, set and put is cut, set and put ), because English speakers don't have any trouble normally forming the past tense of new verbs, eg googled.

I am afraid i am guilty of wanting to correct bad grammar too,one of the worst i see is defiantly instead if definitely
Makes me want to shout , "cant you see the difference,just spell it out to yourself," it doesn;t even sound the same

I am irritated by the use of itch as a verb. "He's itching his leg", no, "he's scratching his leg because he has an itch".

I do love a semi-colon! I’m welsh so I add the word ‘to’ to everything 😂 ‘where to?’ I also end almost all my paragraphs nowadays with the word ‘though’. I irritate the crap out of myself with my awful grammar. No idea why I do it. Though.