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.

About five years ago, my two sisters and myself, after a somewhat prolonged period of separation, found ourselves reunited, and at home.

19 September 1850, Charlotte Brontë.

I agree - I love ‘gotten’ it really feels intuitively correct to me.

It has never fallen out of use in Hiberno English, so its use is not due to American influence at all here. I think it is also widely used in Scotland, though I may be wrong there.

I never heard gotten when I was growing up in the Tayside area.

I lived in the Scottish Highlands for many years. The only time I have ever heard "gotten" is when speaking to an American friend (from Los Angeles) and in American films and television programmes.

I seem to be wrong about it being used in Scotland so.

People hear ‘would’ve’, and think it’s ‘would of’, rather than a contraction of ‘would have’. If you’re not a reader, and so many people aren’t, these days, some will never see the correct grammar in print, or get an understanding of how the contractions have developed.

Similarly, people who write "definately" presumably don't realise that it has the same root as "finish", "infinite" etc. I mean, it's not as if you ever see "finash" anywhere, but I've seen "definately" many times.

I have seen defiantly, mistaken for definitely, used a few times in the last couple of days. Any more, and I shall think it’s a trend rather than coincidence.
(edited as autocorrect removed my apostrophe from it’s)

I think "defiantly" instead of "definitely" could just be that pesky autocarrot, similar to e.g. "reign" or "rein". A lot of posts are submitted without proofreading, and we all know how often properly spelled words can get autocorrected to another word for no good reason, so I tend to give the benefit of the doubt in these cases, so magnanimous am I. 😉

I had a friend from Essex who used to say was you listening. Sometimes it's colloquial - I certainly don't talk the way I type. I use a lot of Scots words in every day talk

Loose for lose is the only thing that makes me lose my shit

Apart from some love island stars completely using words out of context and making new words to boot.

Well, looks like I won the vote but lost the comments.

I am with you. YouTube comment sections are a nightmare at the moment, the SPAG is appalling. ('Stricked' instead of strict was something I noticed a few weeks ago.) Some comments are unreadable, and it can't even be blamed on autocorrect because some words are just a jumbled mess! I was recently called stupid by someone who couldn't use commas, which was amusing. (It was by a Grade A nob who kept telling me a British and Irish tradition was 'just a joke'.)

My dd was born in 97 and went to bog standard state schools until Uni. Her spelling and grammar are excellent, not so much because of school but because she reads a great deal. I learnt to spell much the same way. We did have spelling tests weekly at school but I could have one read through of the list in break time before the test and then I just seemed to know how to spell those words. My dad was very interested in etymology and linguistic derivations, could read and understand 8 languages and was fluent in 5. While I am not such a linguist, I do have a feel for words, as does dd.

I think reading well-written books from an early age makes an enormous difference to SPAG. It is very disheartening that reading is not as wide-spread as it used to be. Entirely understandable, but disheartening.

I could read and write my name when I went to school sged four. My parents bought me children's magazines and read to and with me. Both my parents have excellent SPAG, I just absorbed it but I'm unsure exactly how. I've always loved reading and got A and A* in English and English Lit at GCSE and A level.

God, this annoys me so much. She was seated next to... Also, she no longer has the surname Middleton.

Many years ago, she asked to be referred to as Catherine. Not Kate. The DM seem to specialise in fucking her name up every single time. So tedious, along with the crap grammar.

William calls her Kate doesn't he?

He can privately call her whatever he likes but he says Catherine when referring to her, to the general public.

I never thought about the root. And the other day I remembered this comment and got it right, and will do from now on!!!!
See I don't care that much but I also do....

Those Latin lessons came in handy after all... 😉 👍

I'm always using the ablative absolute.😁