Why YSK?
The first person who typed “should of” probably heard of it in real life that was meant to be “should’ve”, they typed “should of” online and readers thought that it’s grammatically correct to say “should of” which is in fact wrong and it became widespread throughout the years on Reddit.
I hope something could start to change.
I’m not a grammar nazi, but “should of” is driving me up the wall.
I know right, I know people make careless grammatical mistakes all the time, including me, which is completely fine but people outright thought that “should of” is correct and use it all the time starts to get annoying
Same! I rather see shoulda than should of.
Don’t crash to the floor. That’d hurt.
Giving my best!
But more importantly, where do you stand on the Oxford comma?
Oh, Dude! I’m 99% for it. On the night before my uncle’s funeral, while labeling photos for the slideshow, two of my cousins got into an Oxford comma fight. John, Joe, and Jeff. Take out the second comma. But it’s right! But it looks stupid! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Ah funerals, people really get upset over the smallest things due to all the pain from the loss. I don’t want to ever go through that again but I know it’s just a part of life. :(
Yeah. Had to do it twice in the last year. Sucks.
Damn man, I’m really sorry for your losses. I’ve experienced something similar in the past. It’s like when one person dies, more follow shortly. I feel like when people loose their loved ones, its like some peoples bodies when they are old just give up as the person they loved disappeared.
I strongly prefer it but it’s not something I feel is worth correcting someone on.
It’s mandatory in a series, only. Something is only a series of there are three. Plenty of time the cadence and diction sounds like a series but isn’t.
If the first two or last two are antecedent to one another, you don’t need the comma. Said another way, if the first or last noun is not severed from the second, you need a serial command to indicate that.
It depends on what you’re trying to say.
That and “all of the sudden.”
Not just any other sudden. It’s THE sudden.
I know, for all intensive purposes it’s maddening.
Hard relate!
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Nice one. Who’d’ve guessed.
I wouldn’t’ve, that’s for sure!
As a non-native speaker, that hurts !!!
Y’all’re taking it too far.
😱 You are triggering my fear of more than 1 apostrophes in a word
now im wondering if this is actually gramatically correct or not
Yes, it is.
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Coulda, shoulda, woulda…
It was the Victorians that decided double contractions and double negatives should be no-nos. Some nonsense about making language have rules like mathematics. Don’t listen to Victorians.
Y’all’d’ve guessed.
(Reddit has previously informed me that y’all’d’ve is the winner in these complex contractions.)
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Isn’t it actually “For Fuck’s sake”?
Only correct take here…
lol I remember reading this on Quora
For fucks sake…
just say “F.F.S.” from that point on
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Not wanting to be purposefully controversial, but language is a tool for communication and as long as it’s understood by the target audience, then I’d say it was used effectively.
The English language doesn’t have a governing body (unlike say French and Spanish) and so whatever we agree on is correct usage. “Grammatically incorrect” has long been a dog-whistle signifier for elitism (you don’t have the expensive education to know what’s correct) and racism (the local dialect that you speak isn’t our ‘prestige’ version, therefore you are inferior) and I don’t really like to see it. Even when those aren’t your intentions when correcting people, it still rankles with me.
Not that I’d write ‘should of’ on my CV or anything, but it doesn’t offend me any on an internet forum.
and as long as it’s understood by the target audience
Duy’ou-ndarstend Diz?
Understanding written text is more difficult when the existing established conventions that impart meaning are ignored.
Sure, those conventions evolve over time, some errors are worse than others, and no one’s going to write perfectly all the time. But that doesn’t mean anything goes and the writer has no responsibility to write clearly and correctly.
Agree with you wholeheartedly
I perfectly understand “Duy’ou-ndarstend Diz?” but I really would not want to read this over and over again.
Of course, I don’t aim to change everyone, you do you. I just want to use the opportunity to say there is a difference between “should have” and “should of”.
I see your point, and in some way I agree myself. Language is always evolving, and the way English is spoken today is far off from what it was back in the day. And the way we use language tells a lot about a persons background and history. This is not something negative, this is personality and differences between people.
And it’s not someone’s job to change someone or everyone, but it should be accepted to correct when others are wrong. I for one like when people do this to me; I actually encourage my friends to do that to me. This is how I learn and develop my language, and should not be viewed as a negative. If I use language “wrong”, I at least want to be aware of it so I can correct it if I feel the need. I think this should of been how more peoples think it about 😋
It really depends on the context whether or not it’s appropriate to correct someone
Oh yes, 100%. Type of conversation and relationship between partisipants are important to consider. I just believe that the attitude that correcting someone is a negative thing is wrong. Sometimes it might be, like you say, depending on context, but not in general
*Have course
True. Just because “language is descriptive” (descriptivist will always let you know) doesn’t mean everyone can go freestyle with language, carelessly introducing ambiguity and miscommunication. They always say “as long as it gets the point across” but as a non-native but still pretty fluent, most of the time they don’t actually get the point across.
I use this same argument against people censoring swears. Not only is it pointless, but man is it annoying to read, too.
Wait, my 6th grade English teacher was a racist? That explains a lot.
Thanks for the info about French and Spanish governing bodies. TIL
What I’m hearing is we need to set up some kind of formal governing body to properly enforce the grammar rules of English. Maybe Hugo boss could make some uniforms.
It doesn’t necessarily have to invoke that kind of imagery. Spanish has the Royal Spanish Academy and within my lifetime they have removed a couple of letters from the alphabet (ch, ll).
Ah I was just being glib to try and be humorous. Alas my “sense of humour” rarely gets the response looked for. I will keep working on it.
I slightly changed my breathing pattern after reading your comment, if that helps. Not full nose-blow-funny, but you caused a small, positive reaction. Keep it up!
Thanks, the feedback is appreciated. I’ll try and work my way up from heavier breathing pattern to semi snort, and from there? the sky’s the limit.
I guess that would finally settle the colour vs color debate
Portuguese has it too. Our language is governed by an international treaty between Portuguese speaking countries.
Ha, “rankles”. (✿☉｡☉)
I’m certainly no grammar freak and English also isn’t my native language but this deives me insane… Same with your vs you’re… it’s soooo easy…
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I pressed my break to stop the car…
Your correct about that
Yeah once you understand the concept it’s not too crazy. But it is still crazy.
“Should of” is bone apple tea material.
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I feel pain.
Typing “should of” is a sign of failing to understand the basics of English grammar.
Eh, it’s just shifting of how written work is relfective our spoken word. It’s pretty rare for me to use a stronger “ah” sound when saying “would have” most of the time defaulting to a softer schwa sound, which sounds almost exactly how how “of” sounds. English has been changing and evolving for centuries. There’s even major epochs like the great vowel shift. Hell if Shakespeare were around today and making the drastic changes to the english language like he did back then he’d be crucified by internet prescriptivists for using English improperly.
If you’d like something a bit more modern, Mark Twain broke english rules all the time in his writings and he’s considered one of, if not, the greatest American writers.
I’m sorry but it doesn’t fully work here. ‘of’ phonetically should not be spelled with a ‘f’, so they are already using a word that is not pronounced as it is written, might as well use “would’ve”, which removes the part that isn’t pronounced as it was traditionally “ha-”, but at least it’s still correct.
They use ‘of’ because they don’t understand (or pay attention to) the grammar of what they’re saying.
They use ‘of’ because they don’t understand (or pay attention to) the grammar of what they’re saying.
Sure. Because it sounds identical. " 've" and “of” are both pronounced /əv/, hence the confusion. Native speakers write what they hear. If you ever want to stop errors like this, the only solution is spelling reform.
I never thought that these two could be pronounced the same. I pronounce of as in office whereas 've is either pronounced as in have or as in effective (or more like a mix between that and e sound and an “ö” from german) depending on how quick I want to say it.
I never thought that these two could be pronounced the same.
Yes, English spelling is very misleading.
I pronounce of as in office
That would be a mistake in all dialects of English. It is always pronounced with a /v/ sound and the vowel is a schwa. 've is also a schwa plus /v/.
Of course, if we had spelling reform, that would cause even more errors lol
English spelling errors are common because English is not written phonetically. If you fix that, you reduce the errors, not increase them. Spelling mistakes would still occur to some degree (ultimately because one dialect’s pronunciation must be chosen for the written standard) but it would still be an improvement.
Imagine if anglophone students could learn to read and write in 2 years like their peers in Spanish and German speaking countries (many dozens of others) instead of 10.
You’re forgetting the transition period where we change a standard ppl are used to, and also that it’ll be impossible to make orthography match phonics bc different accents and dialectes of english all pronounce things differently
Edit: and also I think Spanish and German speaking counties probably just have better education systems
Shakespeare did not “make” changes, he’s just a very good record of changes that had taken place.
That us just incorrect, his plays marked major shifts in the style of writing for the english language, many writers after him adopted his style and the new mechanics he was making in his plays.
https://online.maryville.edu/blog/william-shakespeare-influence/
It is not incorrect.
his plays marked major shifts in the style of writing for the english language,
True, that is perfectly in line with what I said and contradicts the statement that he "made changes. “making changes” is not the same thing as “marking major shifts”.
many writers after him adopted his style and the new mechanics he was making in his plays.
Many would imitate his style. But we also know very little about the styles that influenced Shakespeare. New mechanics? Not sure what you mean by that. He did not alter the grammar of English nor did he invent words. When people claim he “invented” words or phrases, what they really mean is that his works are the first recorded example. That is not the same thing as “inventing.”
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I’ve seen “should of” in a book before. I think it was house of leaves, that had a bunch of them in it but it was only from one characters perspective if I remember correctly, so it might have been a stylistic choice. Still recommend the book though.
I have that book, but never read it. Too many foot notes, for one, some of them could of been chapters by them selves! (Sorry)
Is it a “correct” or easier way to enjoy the book? Is it meant to be “different” in that way? I’ve only heard good things about it, so really would like getting to it. My go to time wasting social media is no more a part of my life, so now at least I have the time…
The footnotes are pretty much their own story. The book is written like a textbook so it might be quite hard to read sometimes, and it is sometimes boring but still somehow interesting. I don’t think there really is a correct way of reading it though, I mean, you could skip the footnotes but then you’d only kind of get 1/3 of the story. There are footnotes and then there are footnotes of the footnotes.
Hehe, ok, so I wasn’t wrong about it being different and kind of hard to digest. Maybe I just need to keep my own notes on the footnotes and footnotes footnotes to remember what belongs where in the story 😅
House of Leaves is as much a puzzle as it is a book. I wrote in the margins A LOT as I was reading/solving it. FYI, there are more fake references than real references, but some of the references are real.
Even as a non native speaker “should of” feels really weird to me, it just doesn’t make sense. Is this a mistake English speakers do as well?
Pretty sure it’s actually one of those mistakes that is made more often by native speakers than non-native speakers
It’s like theyre/theire/they’re - in my experience it’s mostly native speakers confusing them.
Yeah, I’ve seen have in textbooks way more than ’ve and it’s baked into my brain… This mistake only happens if you hear the word before seeing it written.
It’s because “should’ve” and “should of” are pronounced the same. It doesn’t make sense because they’re just writing what they hear instead of thinking “I’m using the contraction of the auxiliary verb ‘have’”…
It’s because you’re a non native speaker. Should of is a phonetic mistake that can be traced back to repeating words you hear over and over again before you know what they actually mean
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Right on queue.
right on que!
Also, pleeeaaase, someone find me that ancient image macro of a boy, maybe he had a moustache, or maybe it was drawn on, he was raising an eyebrow, and the only caption on it was “que?”. I’ve been searching for that forever.
Was it the character Manuel from the TV show Fawlty Towers, played by the late Andrew Sachs? There are plenty of images of him saying “Que?”
Haha, that’s a really good replacement until I find the one I am looking for. The image I’m thinking of really showed a boy, not a grown man.
I could care less.
My in-laws and I have a Signal group where we share fun spellings and pronunciations. We call it “udder mayham.” It’s fun.
I could care less.
This one is popular.
udder mayham
That’s an eggcorn right?
I could care more or less.
This one in particular gets my goat
Awesome! That means you’ll make a mental note and avoid making the mistake in the future?
That, or this is clearly a potentially intentional (or unintentional) misuse of the saying “I could’nt care less”
Crazy thing is, it’s getting widespread acceptance, and will probably accepted as grammatically correct in a few years.
A bit like how putting “would” in a third conditional if-clause has become standard in US English (“We wouldn’t have been late if we would have taken a taxi”).
I know language evolves but it doesn’t stop my left eye from twitching whenever I hear it.
Not until the definition of the word “of” changes. It is not a synonym for the word “have,” nor will be anytime soon.
Perhaps, when speaking, accent, mush-mouthed laziness, or plain ignorance will confuse “should have” and “should of”, but one is objectively correct, and one is not.
Not until the definition of the word “of” changes.
Well that’s what’s happening here isn’t it. It’s a word that is potentially gaining an additional use as a result of reanalysis. Whether it sticks around long term remains to be seen, but language is defined by usage and it’s foolish to pretend there’s such a thing as objectively correct. Already the use of the verb ‘to have’ to form the perfect in this case is quite different from it’s other meanings related to ‘to possess’. And that’s not even getting into you describing nonstandard usage as the result of ‘mush-mouthed laziness’ which is a whole nother can of worms.
Given the number of offenses I see in books and magazines, I’d say that the only thing left is for the descriptivist grammarians and lexicographers to record it.
language is full of idiosyncrasies like this (my favorite is an ekename -> a nekename -> a nickname. see Wikipedia). it’s perfectly conceivable that should have would be fully re-analyzed in speech like that, so the proper form of the verb to have would become of after should
Same deal with the word “Apron”. It started out as napron, so people would say a napron which turned into an apron
Damn I should of known this
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Downvoted 🥵
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Damn, and here I thought Redditors were the only ones who couldn’t detect a joke
Lmao right? This is obviously a joke
ITT: Awful linguistics takes
