Why can't people spell "faint"?

[Cookerhood]

I keep seeing "feint" instead of "faint" on Covid test threads. Why? Surely "faint" is a simple word with "feint" being more unusual?
(I've now typed it so often that both look odd )

Packed lunch, packed lunch, packed lunch. It's bloody PACKED lunch!
As you were. It feels too rude to correct users on an actual thread about it.

And defiantly for definitely. Why??

I see 'fir' instead of 'for' beginning to creep in too. Im guessing it's to do with pronunciation. I think people see words misspelled and start to question themselves, and if they re not sure, adopt and further spread the misspelling.

There is an increasing number of people who do not know the difference between 'then' and 'than', and 'worse' and 'worst'.

On seeing posts along the lines of, for example, "I'd rather eat shit then read the Daily Mail," I have to hold myself back from enquiring as to why they have a preference for doing those actions in that particular order.

People who don't know the difference between discreet and discrete.
I almost get the feeling that they think discrete is a sort of posher or better way of spelling discreet.....

I was curious to find out how/when/why 'feint' is used as a variant of 'faint' on ruled paper. I've not found any source explaining yet, but I did find an MN thread showing this isn't a very new issue

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/conception/2301872-Feint-line-vs-faint-line

@WalkingTalking that’s stopped looking real to me, my brain hurts 😂

I think defiantly/definitely is often autocorrect.

Are they talking about a feint line on a test or are they saying they're feeling feint?

Ever since sodding covid I've noticed the 'feint' thing and it's been irrationally doing my head in. I would never correct people but I just wonder how people can get this far into their lives without having read it written down.

It is correct to use the word feint ref a covid test, or a pregnancy test, also lines on writing paper. The below is from a Mumsnet 2015 thread-

:34tethersend

Notjusta spelling error- lined paper was always referred to as 'feint', as that is how it was spelled on the pad.

From the OED:

feint, adj.

1. . Feigned, false, or counterfeit; sham; = faint adj. 1. Now rare. a1400 (1325) Cursor Mundi (Trin. Cambr.) l. 19535 Þerfore toke he bapteme feynt [Vesp. faint]. c1400 Rom. Rose 433 She gan..To make many a feynt praiere To God. c1698 J. Locke Thoughts on Conduct of Understanding §33 Dressed up into any faint appearance of it. 1702 London Gaz. No. 3835/2, The Major..made a feint Retreat. 1704 London Gaz. No. 3986/2, Amusing the French with..feint Marches. 1854 Thackeray Newcomes (1855) II. ix. 90 We wear feint smiles over our tears and deceive our children.

1. In commercial use, the usual spelling of faint adj. 5c; freq. quasi-adv.

1859 Stationers' Hand-bk. (ed. 2) 72 Feint only, the term for a book having merely feint blue lines across the page from left to right. 1895 Army & Navy Co-op. Soc. Price List 15 Sept. 525 Foolscap Paper—Ruled with Money Columns and Feint Lines. 1930 Publishers' Circ. 13 Sept. 321/2 The actual book itself should be of foolscap size, ruled feint.

So you can see the sense in referring to a feint line on a pregnancy test.

@MagpiePi

I think your all loosing you're minds over this and I could care less if people get there spelling wrong. Your all being to judgmental.

🤢

And whilst we are on the subject 'an instead of and.

On my Fb feed several people saying 'to my lovely boyfriend/husband/wife ( delete as applicable ) you are the best an I love every day with you an wouldn't want to be without you ... 😐

Fir/for is surely just a typo. Easily done.

Also , it's not always 'my husband (whoever) and I. Sometimes it's me.

It is correct to use the word feint ref a covid test, or a pregnancy test, also lines on writing paper.

No. It's correct on ruled paper, but that really is the only acceptable use of 'feint' used as a variation of 'faint'.

Mixing up quiet and quite drives me mad too, I see it all the time with my work colleagues.

@DirectionToPerfection

Mixing up quiet and quite drives me mad too, I see it all the time with my work colleagues.

I would assume this was an autocorrect thing rather than a genuine misspelling.

Like "definitely/defiantly" it's almost always autocorrect because no one pronounces it the other way round.

I've managed to avoid ever coming across "feint" in place of "faint" somehow...

However I'm a gardener and people talking about "sewing seeds" drives me barmy.

Ect drives me nuts.

That's interesting about feint I haven't actually it seen that often.

The one that kills me is bought and brought. There's a whole extra letter in there! Are they saying brought in real life? In my accent they are really quite different words but I roll my rrrrrrrs

There may well be some archaic use of feint for pregnancy tests (must admit I didn't read the whole thing) but this is either an error or an auto correct. Unless lots of people on Mumsnet are suddenly using archaic versions of words deliberately.

I think I put feint on a covid thread the other day, so maybe it was me... 😂

I can only apologise and blame the tiredness and fuzzy head! I'm usually good at spelling and grammar, believe it or not. Writing actually forms part of my job role 😁

@newbiename

Also , it's not always 'my husband (whoever) and I. Sometimes it's me.

I was given a very simple way to deal with this question: just remove the other party and it's easy to see what is correct. E.g. if the sentence in question is 'my son and I went to the shop', ask yourself if 'I went to the shop' is right. In this case it is. But 'do you want to come to the shop with my son and I', which would become 'do you want to come to the shop with I', which is clearly wrong.

It’s because people misspell definitely as defanately and then autocorrect changes it to defiantly.

Feint is the correct word