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.

I wince when I hear, ‘you did fantastic’.

Eughh yes I hate it when women who have had a poorer education (usually working class) make a grammatical error. If you havnt bothered to reach a certain level of written English your experiences, thoughts and opinions are irrelevant and you should banned from the Internet.

I'm normally pretty sanguine about this stuff but "hence why" is like nails on a chalkboard to me.

Stop it.

I blame the fact that Latin is rarely taught these days for that one. Someone who knows it's an abbreviation of "et cetera" is unlikely to get it wrong imo.

You have to understand grammar to be able to get to grips with Latin, and it really helps imo. (And it's a wonderful language, and worth studying for its own sake!)

Ooh I remember getting called out for this one in something I had written at school. I did think I was quite good at English so I’ve never forgotten it!

Some time ago, I posted a thread asking when it might be appropriate to correct someone. The consensus was, essentially, never.

If so, how do we arrest its spread?

You seem to have attracted the pedants with your title, but I haven’t noticed anyone admitting to using “would of”. It would be useful to understand why they write it that way - and what might persuade them to use the correct form.

It makes me cringe a bit too but it’s clear why it happens, people think should’ve would’ve could’ve is actually of I guess. It’s become a bit colloquial over the years and I’m not sure it’ll change.

I would add about the 'should of/have' I grew up in the north west this is how it sounds and what I would have written (and stil do sometimes) when I was 17 my db(15) came home and said his new teacher had asked why everyone was writing 'should of'. We asked mum she didn't know which was correct. Next time we had Internet we looked it up.

Clearly I went to shit schools, parent with a poor education too. You don't realise it op but this type of snobbiness can have such a horrendous impact on young working class people. It makes higher education terrifying and has put off many of my friends from certain jobs. Someone took this piss out of my spelling of a word once, i then avoided doing that task again because i was so embarased.

Try and be a better person op.

I’m not to worried about of but dislike random “like” popping up. I was going to the like shop and buy like some milk

Mine is ‘state where Prince Harry spent 9 months’ 7

I'd say it's the former, because it's in the genitive case, ie for the sake of fuck!

I think both are acceptable, but with a slightly different meaning:

Try to do something: emphasis on the thing being attempted.
Try and do something: more emphasis on the trying.

I never studied Latin, along with most of my working-class contemporaries in the 1960s but I do read.

You don't have to read a lot just the occasional book or newspaper to see the written word then you will know that it's should have, or etc.

Good news, you have no obligation, moral or otherwise, to fix the way other people speak or to freeze language in stone for all time. Languages change and evolve, that is their nature. Every generation has people who are outraged by this fact and a generation later the outrage is forgotten.

Annoys me too, and 'of' for 'off' and 'to' for 'too'. They mean different things and often totally change the meaning until you realise what people have done. 'I want to go to.' Go to where? Oh you want to go too.

No one is saying that. I certainly don't judge people because they have had a poor education, I would never correct someone's grammar.

However, when a teacher (as happened last week), writes a mangled sentence such as: 'It blew the class and I away'.

Should I not comment?

OFTENTIMES
I haven't read the full thread so sorry if repeated

I hate the use of 'of' in this context and I absolutely do judge people for it

On the contrary, many here have sworn a solemn oath to defend the English language. We take our sacred duties seriously.

Joking aside, this is not language evolution. “Would of” is not a grammatical innovation. It is a misanalysis of spoken English - a spelling error born of phonetics. It is neither a new construction nor a dialectal variant, and it represents no legitimate grammatical shift.

It is simply orthographic confusion.

It bothers me, as does “off” when they mean “of”, or all the many other mistakes people make. But no, we shouldn’t harass people for this. If that would make you feel morally superior that really says more about you.

‘Led’ is nonsense, but at least ‘lain’ is the past participle so they’re on the right track!

Despite my pedantry, I'm fine with "forums".

I accept that knowing that "forum" is a neuter noun in Latin and that therefore its plural ends in "a" is a bit niche, so "forums" becoming the norm is understandable imo. But I wouldn't want to see (for example) "petechias" instead of "petechiae".

A former colleague wrote formal reports and letters exactly as she spoke. Apart from the fact that we all had spellcheck and language check installed, she was oblivious to errors. She never clicked on any of the errors. The reports and letters might have ended up being debated in court, as that was the nature of the work, it really was embarrassing.

And it's the myself/yourself one that gets me! It's a reflexive pronoun, this isn't how it is used. And that's before we get to was/were.

But I usually just roll my eyes and think I must irritate people, too.

Good question! I want my dc to have a good education so they don't have the same issues that i have had so I would prefer their teachers to have good English. But I know that saying something would make me look like an absolute knob and wouldn't change the standard of English the teacher uses so I probably wouldn't say anything. I think the world is changing and spelling/grammar just isn't as valued anymore.

Oftentimes