Of of of of of of of of of of

[BrickBiscuit]

That's the approximate number of rogue 'of's I have seen on Mumsnet posts today alone. 'Should of', 'would of', even an 'I of' somewhere. It is spread by repetition. Should we counter by correcting every instance we can, and enforce the correct use of 'have' by repetition?

Incidentally, my title is an old crossword clue. Do solve it if you like.

YABU: no, we should leave the 'of' people unchallenged;
YANBU: yes, let's have a campaign to correct each and every instance of the error.

Pedants' corner is full of posters mocking other peoples SPAG mistakes.

I just said exactly the same thing before seeing your post.

Or bought instead of brought

We used to do this, and then it became extreme such that threads became about the grammar of the poster not about the problem. So we started bullying people off the grammar and now we get this. I do correct threads in my head but it also pisses me off that I have to do it more and more. I don’t used MN much any more and part of it at least is due to this.

‘Should try and’ is perfectly ok, if a bit informal.

This is my absolute (non) favourite too. Unfortunately, we've lost this one - it's everywhere. A majority of posters on MN are always 'sat here' or 'stood there'. Newspapers use it. The BBC uses it. It's gone.

"I was led on the bed" - groan. See this all the time, not just on MN.

"He gave it to Mike and I" - actual example from a friend who thinks she's correct and curls her lip in what she thinks is hidden contempt when I (in a separate conversation) say 'he said it to Rob and me" (her contempt is because I used the forbidden 'me' word). I expect she's upgraded it to 'Mike and myself' now arrrrgh,

I don't mind learning I'm wrong about something. I hadn't really grasped that 'try and' is wrong before reading this thread. I'm glad to know it. I have some friends for whom English is not their first language, who are EAGER to be corrected and get things right. I feel the same re. learning German. Why should it be so insulting to be shown the right way?

BTW the funniest thing about this thread is the failure of @DuchessofStaffordshire 's little joke - corrected several times by those who missed the irony! 😆

As a child I found it so annoying when my Mum would correct things like this when I spoke. Now as an adult I hear some people speak and, in my head, I thank her for her troubles 😉

I saw the thread title and came to point out that it was the best crossword clue ever, perhaps.

What really gets me is that the people who make such mistakes CONTINUE to make them. Threads like this one are never full of people saying ‘OMG, I’ve been getting that wrong for years! I’ll try to get it right in future.’ I’ve actually seen people doubling down on the brought/bought thing: ‘That’s what we say where I live.’

HA HA HA well done

Because ; I seen this alot ,on here ,and,it annoys myself .!

🤣

I only heard the phrase “revert back” last week. Someone wrote it in an e mail to me at work. I was really confused! I assumed they must mean that they’d get back to me but googled it just in case I should be expecting something else! 🤣

HRTFT

Gotten.
On route.

l won’t deny - I judge people who use these.
I cannot abide them - my daughter knows better than to use them!

I think 'Inter city (4)' is a good candidate for neatest clue, though it requires a slight stretch of definition.

Honestly, I wish I didn't care. But I can't help wincing whenever I read something like 'I should of went to work' or 'I could of cared less'.
As an HR manager in the 80s, reporting to the Company Secretary, writing policies and procedures/offer letters/disciplinary warnings etc etc, everything had to be absolutely correct. Grammar, spelling, punctuation - everything. If it wasn't correct , it might change the legal meaning.
I later retrained as a TEFL teacher, and that's when I really realised that our English teachers at school only taught us the bare minimum with regard to grammar.
I try not to correct people, but in my head I do it ALL THE TIME. I can't switch it off. It's a curse...

Too at the end of a phrase such as “He doesn’t want too” or “I shouldn’t have too”. It’s really odd that it only happens at the end of sentences.

Personal opinion based on growing up abroad and moving to the UK and being bilingual.

Teachers in the UK teach the British curriculum with fidelity. It is to an excellent standard. However if you are aiming for grammar excellence, there needs to be more focus on it. Let’s face it, it won’t happen as there are already 13 subjects in the primary curriculum, with the use of Word and AI, you could also argue that there are other things more important things that there are more beneficial things that couldn’t be taught instead of squeezing more grammar in the curriculum.

As someone who learnt to be bilingual from an early age and who was educated abroad, English grammar was taught explicitly 3 to 4 times per week. Grammar was not a bolt on, it wasn’t a quick lesson like what we offer in primary in the UK. It was an in depth lesson following a planned written scheme with daily activities and daily homework to practise and reinforce the lessons. (Not sure how many parents would like this here!)
I don’t recall our teachers correcting typical grammatical mistakes in primary such like ‘should have’ or ‘jumpt’ instead of jumped because we didn’t make these types of mistakes weirdly enough. We knew that jump is a verb, and you add -ed to the end to change it to the past tense because it’s a regular verb. Whilst we were taught to write what we hear, we were mainly encouraged to use grammar rules to spell and create sentences with meaningful and sound structures. In the UK, we mainly use our phonics knowledge to write what we hear, this is where all the mistakes originate from, grammar is not always reinforced as a key to spelling, there is far too much focus on phonics instruction as if it is the solution to all spelling mistakes- no, we weren’t taught any phonics either.
In the UK, our strength and main focus is creative writing, not grammar as because English is considered the native language for most of the children, so they are expected to know how to apply grammar rules even if they can’t explicitly tell you the rules behind it. Unfortunately, Non native speakers will need to learn it by osmosis, as EAL support is non existent.
In the UK, the use of slang and poor grammar at home has a negative effect on children’s language development as that’s the model they have been exposed to. Teachers have to bring the children’s attention to these errors, teach those children to unlearn the slang/incorrect grammar and teach them the proper way of saying “ I bought this’ not ‘ I buyed this’ for example. However when parents aren’t even aware that they are making grammatical errors and are therefore unable to correct these mistakes, these children have a more challenging way ahead of them. Once errors are embedded, it’s really hard for any teacher to fix what’s ingrained as it will get undone as soon as they get home and get exposed to the error again.
Learning starts at home primarily, then at school.

As Mark Twain said 'Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience'.

Football?

There’s nothing wrong with "try and" in an informal setting.
https://www.google.com/search?q=is+try+and+grammatically+correct&rlz=1C9BKJA_enGB1170GB1170&oq=try+and+gramm&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCAgCEAAYFhgeMgYIABBFGDkyCAgBEAAYFhgeMggIAhAAGBYYHjIICAMQABgWGB4yCAgEEAAYFhgeMggIBRAAGBYYHjIICAYQABgWGB4yCAgHEAAYFhgeMggICBAAGBYYHjIICAkQABgWGB7SAQkxMDUwMWowajeoAhmwAgHiAwQYASBf8QVSfvQAfT3aOQ&hl=en-GB&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Surely you mean, "If it weren't correct"?

A stretch of definition because it's actually a town?
I hope I've got the wrong answer because I think towns and cities are quite distinct from each other so don't really like that one.
I like the chestnuts "HIJKLMNO" (5) and "Two girls, one on each knee" (7)

I'm seeing people using "then" instead of "than" more and more frequently.

I even saw it on the front page of the Telegraph once when something fiscal had "increased faster then expected".

I did email the journalist to express my dismay.

Yes, this is a relatively new one, and is baffling to me.