...to remind you that it's "could have" not "could of"

[LostInShoebiz]

Just that. It's my pet hate and I can take no more.

I’m with you OP. I find it baffling that so many people confuse the two. How would they make sense of ‘of’ as a verb?
I of
You of
They of
We of
She of

Easily confused as in speech because 'could've' sounds very similar to 'could of' but is the abbreviation of 'could have'.

Why shouldn't adults be corrected? Surely you/they would be grateful for an opportunity to improve? When people use the incorrect words or poor grammar, they look like uneducated fools. I don't listen to anything they say, if they can't get something as simple as an apostrophe correct then how can you believe they know anything?

I'm with you OP. I absolute fucking HATE it! .

Apologies for swearing, but it makes my blood boil. It's HAVE, it was always HAVE and I can't figure out how it's suddenly become 'of' and why this seems acceptable?

I’m just itching to correct InToMyHeart’s post. I won’t though because that’d make me a twat.

LyingWitch, you haven't begun explaining your viewpoint, so you can't claim to be finished with it.

It's interesting how all the outright aggression on here comes from those who feel that no-one should ever write about grammatical errors, even when they are doing so in a completely non-personal manner as is the case in the OP. Yet somehow it's acceptable to write freely all over MN about non-SPAG mistakes people make in countless other contexts. Double standards?

It's rife on here and everywhere else. Even a teacher at school said "glad to here it" on an online post last week. There's just no point getting annoyed by it all, it's too far gone 

I reckon your thread is fine op. Not nice to pull individuals up on their spaghetti mid-thread or anything, but you haven"t done that.

I am actually lolling, roffling and pmsling at LyingWitch accusing someone else of being pompous.

Heh heh at that mad autocorrect!

Threads like this highlight the elitist attitude some have on here. It's like the usual claims about how Mumsnet has 'dumbed down' since penis beaker as if it's a terrible thing that the forum is more diverse. You see it on here all the time, a person posts a baby names thread or about a cake smash or similar they get asked if they should be using 'nethuns' instead. It's really unpleasant.

Grammar is the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit

Is it SPAG month on MN or something?

What always surprises me on threads like this is how so many apparently intelligent people are unable to stop for a second and think why ....

We have people in other countries fighting hard for the luxury of education, doing all they can to improve it.

Over here we just like to slag people off for being 'thick'...

Anything to feel superior for a few seconds.

You could never get everyone to use correct grammar on MN, so what's the point? In every other thread, you will find 'you was', 'we was' etc. I just accept it as a regional thing now.

You are right Cherry as there will be a number of factors from whether English is your first language to learning difficulties. For that reason I wouldn't pick on a poster in a forum but I do in my professional role.

What I don't get is people that use incorrect grammar and refuse to accept correction. In my current role I communicate with many people within and outside of my organisation. Sometimes grammar really matters so I try and get it right. I'm embarrassed when I make a mistake and try to learn from it.

In a couple of years my current employment will come to an end and I'll have to find a something else. Knowing my CV and application will go straight into the bin if it contains errors is a strong motivator.

If also like to add that just because something will never happen, doesn't mean that you shouldn't try. I imagine there will always be crime or RTIs. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to reduce them.

Genuinely and generally. They are 2 completely different words and yet people use generally when they mean genuinely. Drives me mad.

Threads like this highlight the elitist attitude some have on here

Exactly. English is a fairly difficult language to get right. And we know nothing about the person behind the post. English may not be their first language, they make have learning difficulties like dyslexia, or simply be not particularly academic. Or they may have been tripped up by autocorrect.

There's far too much snobbery about the quality of writing on here. It's not a job application FFS, it's a chat board. I like that it's not txt spk mostly because I am too old to understand it but I don't think it is necessary for every post to be written in perfect English.

What I find confusing is that the same standards aren't expected of numeracy. It's perfectly acceptable to boast about being unable to perform even primary level maths. People post alarmingly basic questions like 'what's 3% of £20k', or see that horse trading post that's been going round for the last few days. Endless people boasting about being shit at maths and unable to see that the answer is $20 . What's the difference?

And it is never acceptable to comment that such examples are very simple, which they are. Anyone that did would be berated by armies of posters making excuses, some of which are valid and can equally be applied to poor SPAG, but surely the majority should be able to work these things out correctly by themselves, and it wouldn't be seen as a thing to boast about, to struggle with these things.

Yy to generally being used when they mean genuinely. I watch Towie and Geordie Shore (judge away) and they do it all the time. SO annoying!!!

In that vein I really do not like the use of defiantly when people mean definitely.

What I don't get is people that use incorrect grammar and refuse to accept correction.
Maybe, they're online so don't actually care.

Maybe they don't know the difference between there/their/they're (so taking the piss as some do is just nasty and smug).

Maybe they're typing absent mindedly and make a mistake but who cares.

Maybe non standard grammar and the use of punctuation to convey spoken language patterns is a well established features of technological communication (as demonstrated by countless studies in English Language and Linguistics).

Maybe it's part of their dialect features and they just don't care.

Maybe it's part of their dialect and they are more than capable of codeswitching to Standard English when needed, but given that informal chats aren't typically policed for standard English it doesn't really matter.

I say this on almost every post/thread like this and it still gets the same snobby response 'but why if you know would you choose to be incorrect?' At this point I roll my eyes because the people being the smug grammar police only demonstrate their own limited understanding of how language works.
(And for what it's worth, know it all SPaG correctors who interrupt perfectly decent conversation to go 'haha. I think you mean THEIR' are themselves breaking Grice's maxims of conversation by not maintaining relevance. Non standard English on a forum is a perfectly acceptable language feature, so interrupting to correct or mock actually breaks more lingusitic rules than the people they claim to be challenging)

Yanbu. And it's you're.

I think defiantly vs definitely is often an autocorrect issue.

I'm glad that a couple of people have now pointed out that the correct rendering of "could of" is actually "could've", not "could have". Every time this comes up on Mumsnet I get pissed off at it because if you correct "could of" to "could have" then it's possible that the people you're correcting are going to think you're objecting to the informality of the contraction, and miss the point.

I don't think anyone's thinking of the formality or lack thereof: they're just not thinking at all.