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.

There is an advert for a TV programme where all the presenters say a little piece and one of the presenters says "keep the status quo as it is". I always shout at the telly that they're supposed to be educated journalists.

If we keep it to Pedants' Corner it is admitting defeat. It isn't too late to save the masses from their errors.

There was a thread earlier where some said "I am sat chilling". Surely if you know it is chilling you know it is also sitting so the tenses agree.

The quality of journalism is shocking nowadays, especially in print. I saw some corkers on the BBC website the other day, I wish I had taken a screenshot. I wonder if proofreaders are thin on the ground or being replaced by AI?

Lolz

God yes that too. Kirsty Allsopp drives me nuts with that one. If you would say me then it's Phil and me not Phil and I.

18 pages FRONT AND BACK

English police out again I see....

This is the writing of someone who is writing as they would speak slang and all. So, whilst it's poor grammar, we all know what is meant, ergo does it really matter?!

Plenty of other things to be getting het up about like the shit storm that surrounds Epstein and his band of sickos and identifying who the others like Espein are....

Try TO! You don’t ’try and do’ something, you try TO do it

I do detest the incessant misuse of the term "bully".

Ah ok thank you 😂I thought I'd unknowingly been saying something incorrect all this time!

Why are there so many people on mn who love correcting spelling and grammar mistakes? Is it because there’s a high proportion of teachers on here or something? I don’t get it.
It can’t be because there’s a higher percentage of educated people because that could be said about lots of platforms and they don’t have a Pedants’ Corner or almost daily threads about bad grammar.
Most people who make these kinds of mistakes simply don’t know any better. Why do other people have to pretend it bothers them so much. I cannot believe that it actually does.
There are intentionally offensive things said on here all the time but all some people seem to notice are harmless, unintentional grammatical errors.
I never would have believed that there were people who felt genuinely superior because of their excellent SPaG if I hadn’t joined mumsnet.

"I was sat" is entirely correct use of the dialect in the north west of England, and probably elsewhere. Now think of it, I remember people saying "I was sut".

I wouldn't expect it in written language, though t'internet is little less formal.

"a" little less formal !!!

I blame teachers, they should be teaching this shit better in schools.

Loose weight

Brought. a new top

Aargh !

Yes this gets to me too. It's as though there's a fear of using "me". Common example in an email is "give [NAME] or I a call on XXX" It's fine to say "me"!!

yep, soz, you are being unreasonable, because, you know what they mean.
It would matter, if for instance, they were writing some instructions… but they ain’t! ☺️

Because it matters: when you read a post that contains no punctuation or paragraphs, combined with poor grammar and spelling, it becomes very hard for the brain to decipher the message and makes it more susceptible to misinterpretation.

It isn't.
'Should've' is a contraction of 'should have', the apostrophe is there to denote the missing letters h and a.
It is not pronounced the same as 'should of'.

This whole reply section is hilariously bonkers 😂

Then don’t read it and move on? It’s not compulsory is it?

And "based off" instead of based on.

or 'contacting'; reaching out is just awful.

Someone said on another thread that a large percentage of children are unable to tell the time using an analogue clock.
Isn't this the type of thing that is taught at primary school and by parents?

Any linguists out there know that language evolves. Don’t fight it 🤪