Am I the only one who wound up by this!

[Mummytotwogirls01]

I know I probably am BU but it really winds me up how people use 'brought' instead of 'bought' -the verb to bring and to buy are completely different and have different meanings it's not hard to use the right one!!
The other one that really winds me up is how a lot of people use' I should of' instead of 'I should have' -of is not a replacement for have it's just wrong!
Is it just me? What other common errors annoy you?

MinnieMountain

“Can I get?” when ordering something.

This!!

"And would that work for yourself"?

It is incorrect but I wonder if it's really a new usage, a new kind of super-polite pronoun. When people say it they are meaning to be polite and it is as if "yourself" is a bit more polite than "you".

Perhaps it is evolving into our equivalent of French "tu/vous" ?

I would never point out anyone's mistakes though. I hardly notice spelling and grammar mistakes. I'm dyslexic so it takes me all my time just to try and get mine right (and there's usually a few mistakes. My phone is also a dick that likes to miss out letters and change things all the time)

“I won him at...” no you won. You beat him.
“It’s literally there” “she was literally gone five minutes “no,it’s actually there. She was actually gone five minutes (though if it’s a kid at school, more like ten 😏”

I agree...

Brought and bought are totally different words
Carnt is not a word
Borrowed me, what???
Could of, should of, must of

It is incorrect but I wonder if it's really a new usage, a new kind of super-polite pronoun. When people say it they are meaning to be polite and it is as if "yourself" is a bit more polite than "you"

I always felt it wasn’t about politeness, but thinking it makes them sound more posh?!

Persay (per se) and on route (en route) bug me, too!

[quote Mummytotwogirls01]@HundredMilesAnHour -i agree - this is another one 'she learned me' ahhhh learned is a passive verb you learn she taught! 'Can I lend a pen' to lend is an active verb - 'can I borrow a pen' or 'can you lend me a pen'!! [/quote]
Hmmm, well this one’s a bit trickier:

It’s thought the expression actually comes from the word ‘leren’ which was Middle English for ‘teach’

So the etymology is sound. You’ve got to remember there were many different dialects spoken long before anyone tried to standardise English.

Sometime you get relics like these.

I wouldn’t let it piss you off, English is a very rich language, and like any living language changes and evolves.

I was always taught if you don’t like languages to change then only speak in Latin.

@JustLyra

it's not hard to use the right one!!

It’s not difficult for you, it is for many.

Nobody actually chooses to be poor at literacy, dyslexic, have a poor school etc.

Being sneery, especially the faux “I don’t understand, where did you bring your house from” posts, is actively a choice. And says far more about a persons character than poor grammar or spelling ever does.

Absolutely agree with this.

Fair enough it grates, but when posters actively go out of their way to make unpleasant sneery posts, I think it says far more about them and their character tbh

Yes!

The brought instead of bought is particularly annoying - whether it's common in a particular region or not, it is the wrong word!

Incorrect use of "and I" is infuriating as is "myself" especially as they're often used when someone is trying to sound more intelligent (in my opinion)

Was and were

Borrow and lend

"My friend borrowed me a bike"

"boarders" instead of "borders", as in "we must protect/close our boarders from them bloody forinners!"

You'd think someone so fucking "patriotic" would care about not butchering their own language? No? Apparently not...
As a bloody foreigner myself, who happens to cares about grammar and spelling (even when it's not my native language), I find this particularly rattling.

One of my bugbears is 'break' being used instead of 'brake'. There's an example in the Times letters today from someone who should have known the difference. It would indeed be undesirable to rely on (broken) 'electric breaking' to brake your car!

I don't pull people up on these things but they do make me shudder inside. If I see someone put 'carnt' on a FB status I usually tell my phone that there shouldn't be an R but I would never berate the person.

What really baffles me is that my phone auto corrects carnt into can't so its actually an effort to type it incorrectly.

“She as gone away now”

As instead of has really irritates me , but I do say some of the above !

Since the standards of teaching reading writing , punctuation and written English has gone down the toilet in UK schools over the years, you best get used to the it. It certainly won't ever improve!!

@Pegasushaswings

“She as gone away now”

As instead of has really irritates me , but I do say some of the above !

Many of the above are perfectly correct tbf.

I can get past most spelling/grammar mistakes as it's a forum after all but brought instead of bought is the one that really stirs up the irrational rage.

I can't get very wound up about the way things are expressed on a casual forum such as Mumsnet.

However I do find it irritating when journalists & broadcasters, whose chosen profession is communicating in the English language, make these howlers.

For example there doesn't appear to be a living soul at the BBC who understands the difference between “less” and “fewer” (my pet hate).

The wrong use of "good". As in Simon Cowell telling a contestant who's been on another bloody "journey", "You did good".

No, they did well (although that's debatable).

Flaunted the rules instead of flouted them.

*Mummytotwogirls01

Admittedly the title should probably say am I the only one 'who's' wound up by this -typo! Xx

Muphry's Law!*

😂

It doesn't annoy me but I do spend a lot of time stamping out the word 'brang' which seems very keen to break into the language.

There's more than one dialect in the UK and getting angry at others for it is U

As well as they use of’ myself’ instead of ‘me’, my pet hate is ‘ hence why’. Hence means why, so the why is redundant.
But I think both stem from people thinking that they sound more formal/ authoritative.
They might do to people I suppose.

For example there doesn't appear to be a living soul at the BBC who understands the difference between “less” and “fewer” (my pet hate).

Or between "temporally" and "temporarily".

Or between "decade" and "decayed".

Or between "asked" and "arsed" (or "our souls" and "arseholes").

The latter examples are just mispronunciations, but the first is a clear lack of awareness that "temporally" means something completely different from "temporarily".