For god's sakes it's Choked!

[Veterinari]

I keep seeing 'chocked' and in my mind all I can see is someone choking on a giant wooden block

How do people not know that adding the c totally changes the pronunciation? Where does the c come from? Why would you think it's needed?

To choke
I choked
He is choking

Just 1 c!

A few years ago when she was in about Y6, my dd was given a science homework sheet. It was full of errors. I photocopied it, corrected it in red and sent it to the head of the English department.

Less and fewer. It is not possible to have 'less people' - FEWER people, LESS sugar. Also amount and number. If you can count them, it's number.

And also 'gift' is not a verb!

Phew, that's better.

But doesn’t God have a capital ‘G’

I refuse to give god a capital G on principle, because I'm an atheist. The rule is supposed to be that when you're referring to a god or gods in general, you don't need a capital. You only use one when you're using 'God' as a proper noun to name a particular god. But since I don't believe in him, he's just a god to me.

Ooohhh 'chocked' is my absolute pet hate op. I can't focus on anything else the person has written once I see that. It irritates the fuck out of me!

Loose and lose - why is this one so difficult?!!!

Obvious, surely? A single 'o' doesn't usually make an 'oo' sound. Plus 'loose' looks like it should rhyme with 'choose'. English spelling is properly bonkers. It's not really that surprising people find it hard!

Gift is a verb.

You might want to read up on less and fewer (in particular discrete use and prescriptive vs descriptive observation) before declaring absolute rules. (David Crystal is a good one to start with)

There was also a good thread about it on Pedants' years ago before it was taken over by people who think it's here to slag other people's English off. In those days, we used to enjoy intelligent conversation about quirks of language use not "mwahaha it's should have" puerile smuggery.

Enquiry instead of inquiry
Accept instead of except
Been instead of being

Aaaaarrgggghhhh!

My favourite ever random apostrophe was at Washington Services on the A1, regarding their cooked breakfast offer. A sign invite you to “cho’ose 5 items”.

A single "o" doesn't make an "oo" sound?
Perhaps you should write to the IPA association and dictionaries about their pronunciation of the word "lose"
People who get "loose" and "lose" wrong get it wrong because the standard pron of both is identical apart from the "s" which is /s/ and /z/ respectively. Nothing to do with the vowel which is /u:/ in both.

Can't you read? I said a single 'o' doesn't usually make an 'oo' sound. Which it doesn't. But no, of course the 'oo' sound in 'lose' couldn't possibly be a contributing factor in people erroneously spelling it with a double 'o' though.

Anyone else round here cringing at Pritti Patel this evening with her "Martin and myself are going to ..." ?

No doubt they will do 'sumfink' because that is how she speaks. Bloody annoying.

This drives me absolutely bonkers, more than any other mistake to be honest. I see it constantly on my local Facebook group and I don't understand why it happens.

That and his/he's - as in "I gave my baby he's bottle"

"His going to the park"

The one I keep coming across lately is people proclaiming their 'upmost' support or respect. It was even in an email sent on behalf of my MP!

When DS was in primary school he brought home a (proper, published) book called

How The Elephant Got It's Trunk

I'm more inclined to forgive a few rogue apostrophes at the moment, especially in "its", because autocorrect seems to not yet get context right reliably. The same goes for random capitalisation - White for instance. Why does it assume it's a proper noun by default?

@ErrolTheDragon YES!!! What is with the random capitalisation?! What has Apple done to its autocorrect??!!

(I appreciate that that was gratuitous use of ! and ? but it seemed appropriate)

Breath instead of breathe...i could hardly breath. WTAF??

@TheCanterburyWhales You're right - I stand corrected on 'gift'. It does really annoy me, though! (Also always amuses me that 'Gift' is the German word for poison!)

Interesting about less / fewer; it seems that it is only becoming 'correct' because it's becoming more common. Does that mean that things like you're/your are going to become 'correct', though?

Two that always seem to be incorrect on MN are:
ect rather than etc, and MNs always seem to want to squash something instead of quash it. Drives me crazy.

I've seen 'reign it in' so often on here that it now looks odd when the correct 'rein' is used.

FB is currently full of family's doing activity's and so on.

I think loose/lose is a battle we can't win now unfortunately

Someone on my facebook says she misses her grandchildren Lodz. I know she means loads but it reads as lodds 😀

@joydivisionovengloves71 Possible autocorrect to the Polish city..?!

What is with the random capitalisation?! What has Apple done to its autocorrect??!!

It's not entirely random, I think it overdoes it with words which could be used as proper nouns. I suppose white is a common surname (not sure why it sometimes gets caps but not always). Others which I see sometimes getting caps are may (I think that has declined - perhaps it learned the previous PMs name but is now forgetting it?) and Male - Malé is the capital of the Maldives but if it's going to insist on doing the cap it ought to do the accent too. Makes one wonder if that was just done to annoy females.

I'm seeing an awful lot of apostrophes used for plural words at the moment. It's making me sad.

Breathe / breath. Granted its an easy typo but some people don't seem to realise there are two words, and one rhymes with death.
"For e.g."
"Ect"
Putting quotes around a word for no reason. How do you "plan" your time at home?
Putting a question mark at the end of a statement does not make it a question.
Omitting "I", "you" etc at the beginning of a sentence.

Combine a few of the above and I find myself having to read something a few times before guessing what was meant.