To ask where all these composite words have come from?

[Nunoftheother]

I'm intrigued as to where these have all suddenly (it seems) appeared from. They're absolutely rife on this site and Facebook, etc.

I'm thinking of "words" such as: alot, abit, inbetween, incase, infront, eachother and quite a few others. Is it just the same process as "maybe", "tomorrow", "today", etc.?

Another thing is the common confusion between "non" and "none" (i.e. "it's non [sic] of my business"), but I suspect that's a pronunciation issue a bit like "have" being confused with "of".

@SummerBlondey

What about the over usage of the word "like" ?

We don't write it down much, but just listen to anyone speaking these days and the "like" bomb is EVERYWHERE!

"And I was like, and she was like, and then I was like....." And it's not just here, it's Global.

Like is a dialect marker, a verbal pause if you will. Same as umm.

Alot has been my achille's heel forever. It's the one mistake I make over and over and over and I'm not sure why my stupid brain will not get that it's not a word.

Most people I know have errors in their grammar nowadays. Using thankyou instead of thank you is very commonly seen, especially when written rather than typed (when autocorrect will change it).

I know I’m guilty of making errors myself!

Dialects should not slip into written english. To mix five dialects - you might say "Eyes gannin oot the neet" but you should write "I am going out tonight".

"Dialects should not slip into written english."

I agree. We should all write like original English, like what Chaucer did. Our maybe Shakespeare.

FFS. Language evolves.

@SummerBlondey

Slight derailment but I’m the opposite, Scottish living in England, and round here (Midlands) “brought” is used interchangeably with “bought” both verbally and written, which drives me to completely apoplexy. Can someone please explain?

I was raised in the Midlands - this is absolutely not a regional thing!

Yeah, people make that mistake all over.

I hate it when people say "bird" instead of the original, and therefore correct, brid.

• What about the over usage of the word "like" ?

We don't write it down much, but just listen to anyone speaking these days and the "like" bomb is EVERYWHERE! *

What do you mean, 'these days'? I'm 60 and this was something noticeable in my youth.

@ZoeTurtle

There's always been a lot of aloting but the others are new on me. What really annoys me is people dropping 'to be', like 'he needs told' or 'it needs changed.' Hate it.

I remember it as "I telt him" or "He needs telt".

@OhBabooahka

Language evolves, spelling evolves, pronunciation evolves, it doesn't matter at all.

Should it evolve due to people not reading as much and therefore being unable to spell correctly? I'm not sure it should.

But there's got to be a limit to the "evolving". Otherwise there would be no need for English language teaching ;)

At the moment British English is a lot more influenced by American English than South African English, for example, presumably because we hear more American English (and some people think it's quite "cool"). But I don't agree that we should just start using AE words when there are perfectly good BE ones! Saying "surgeries" instead of operations, for example, adds nothing to BE, especially as the word "surgeries" already exists with a different meaning.

The meaning of words (and their spelling) does matter.

Now I keep reading "upfront" all over (allover?) the place.

And I think they're compound words, not composite.

You could well be right, but what would you say is the difference?