To actually hate people who say bought instead of brought

[GentleButter]

Why?
WHY DO PEOPLE SAY BOUGHT WHEN THEY SHOULD SAY BROUGHT?
It's unbearable.
I cannot bear it when someone says it.
I'm polite, so I have to use every muscle in my throat and mouth to stop myself from screaming "But you didn't BUY it! So WHY are you saying BOUGHT????"
It happens constantly.
I was in a meeting at work. Someone said "Yes, I bought this issue up the other day" internally, I screamed "But you didn't BUY this issue, so WTF are you saying you BOUGHT it?".
This goes on and on all around me.
Worst of all, my own husband says it, which is insufferable. No amount of me correcting him will make him understand the nonsense of saying 'bought' when he should say 'brought'. And he went to private school, so he was well educated and he still can't get it right. There's no excuse.

Yes I think it must be more common in non-rhotic accents. I'm Irish and you would never hear bought and brought being mixed up here because they sound different.

Same - I lived in south London for over a decade and never heard 'should off' with a soft 'ff' (IPA /f/). The usual error is 'of', as the /v/ sound is confused with 've, as in 'should've'.

Those who irritate me far more than the makers of mistakes, are those who say these things don’t matter any more, nobody but nitpicking pedants care - and especially those who put (particularly) verbal mistakes down to ‘dialect’ or ‘evolution of the language’.
In the vast majority of cases it’s neither - it’s just sloppiness or ignorance, or both.

I do in fact really like genuine quirks of dialect, e.g. a Scot I used to know saying ‘I should ha’ went…’ instead of ‘should have gone’, or an Irish friend saying, ‘I was just after (doing something)’ - meaning she’d just done it.

To me ‘evolution of the language’ includes words such as ‘nice’ or ‘vicious’, which meant something different in e.g. Jane Austen’s time.
And, from the JA era, someone saying, ‘It rains!’ when nowadays almost everyone would say ‘It’s raining!’

100%. I always notice SPaG errors because I'm a teacher and it's my job, and I can't deny they irritate me, but I would never point them out to anyone who isn't a child in my class. It's just so rude and unnecessary.

My exception is on Mumsnet when someone like the OP is being so unpleasant and supercilious or has corrected someone else's SPaG and has made an error themselves- then, I'm afraid, they are getting a taste of their own medicine.

I want to jump in here as this comment alerted a memory : years ago I worked
in an aircraft factory, typing technical reports, safety checks, calibrations -
we were regularly required to decipher written instructions akin to a foreign language.

The Engineers’ spelling, grammar, lack of punctuation, syntax, sentence construction was an endless source of surprise and dismay, a challenging time.

Apparently, the extremely bright, clever Engineers with first class degrees from Imperial College were wired differently, specialised early, relied on scribes as they
genuinely could not acknowledge the importance placed on accurate means of communication, heads full of torque, thrust, pressure, VtoL, maximum weight.

That any of these aeronautical boffins could be dyslexic was never ever mooted.

Ahh I see. I didn't realise she was talking about the written word. I thought she was trying to type it how it sounds when spoken 👍

Tender Hooks.

Grrrrrrr.

Actually hating someone for grammatical or linguistic errors seems a little strong. I feel a bit sorry for people who make these routine errors as it will really hold them back in life, and I count my blessings. Perhaps they have not had the advantages I have in life.

This reads like you're criticising the student here, when all it is is a misunderstanding about a word with two different meanings. She isn't speaking in her native language, and I think it's very obvious why she might think "potty" would be a polite way to say the dog had done a poo. Good for her.

Never seen this. Often see “brought” instead of “bought” though. And “women” when they mean “woman”.

Wonderful 😂

If you spend any time with small children in the USA or watching American cartoons you will see that 'to go potty' is a very widespread informal usage in AmE for very young children. As AmE is the dominant influence on international English it's no surprise that your student has picked it up. 'Potty' for 'mad' is exclusively BrE and arguably becoming fairly quaint on its way to archaism.

Yes, what is it with so many people writing 'women' when they mean 'woman'? You never see people making the same mistakes with men/man.

I also hate the common use of 'woman' as if it were an adjective. If you genuinely do need to point out a woman's sex, then the adjective is 'female'.

Nobody ever talks about 'man authors' or 'man tennis players' or 'man teachers' - you would find it hugely weird if anybody ever did.

loathe - verb, as in ‘I detest’
loath - adjective, as in ‘I am loath to make a comment’

With man vs men, the change in the vowel changes the pronunciation in a way that children will understand in their first year of primary school, so it's unlikely they will be confused.

With woman vs women, the change from a to e actually changes the pronunciation of the o, with any change in the a vs e being very subtle if there is any change at all.

Much much harder to remember.

Also, autocorrect is a bugger for this one ime.

*Quite often in the West Midlands (particularly black country), borrow and lend are used interchangeably.

Can you borrow me a fiver? Etc.*

I think it's used everywhere but it is still wrong!

I hear this the most in Scotland!

But don't people realise that the rule is exactly the same as man/men, but with a 'wo' prefix?

I agree on autocorrect, though - it seems to be programmed by crazy people. The number of times it tries to change 'that' into non-existent words such as 'thag' or otherwise 'thar', which is just about never used except when sandwiched in between 'gold in them' and 'hills'!

Thank you for reading my anecdote in the spirit it was intended :)

‘On route’ instead of en route, although I guess ‘on route’ is just the English version? Or should it be ‘on THE route’ in English, or ‘on the way’? 🤷🏻‍♀️

I always have to look up bare & bear and kerb & curb, so any tricks for those are welcome.

Also I’ve recently learnt my friend says Kiev (as in chicken) as ‘key-EFF’ 😵‍💫 instead of KEY-ev. Although nowadays we’re all meant to say Keeeeeeev aren’t we? (Kyiv vs Kiev?)

It's like pretty much all of the errors discussed on this thread - they're basic stuff, that most of us learned in primary school. If that didn't stick for whatever reason it's harder to learn as an adult.

As you say it's very easy to remember, so just like bought vs brought it's a bit weird when the tone of posts discussing these errors is smug.

I could post in the same tones about the posters who ask for help with percentages, but for some reason struggling with basic numeracy is acceptable but basic literacy errors aren't.

how about sat instead of sitting? eg. I was sat eating my lunch when....

Pretty sure that one is regional. Not great formally, fine informally on MN.

I can't stand the use of 'waiting on' when surely it should be 'waiting for' as in "I'm waiting on a parcel".
And also, 'hating on'

@CathbadsCloak unless it is Mick and Keith, ‘Waiting on a Friend’