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I find this so annoying!

(37 Posts)
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BoggledMind Fri 20-Feb-26 19:15:28

I'm new here so please accept my apologies if it's been mentioned before.

There seems to be an increasing use of the the word 'of' instead of 've. For example:
Could of, should of, would of, instead of could've, should've, would've.

I can’t believe that a lot of people don’t realise the 've is short for 'have'. Could have, should have, would have.

I'm seeing this error more often and can only assume it's because people write it as they say it.

As Terry Wogan would say, "Is it me?"

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BoggledMind Sat 21-Feb-26 22:21:57

Thanks for your interest and comments, it looks like I'm in good company. Reading your replies, the pedants are alive and well.

At least it's not just me smile

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RosiesMawagain Sat 21-Feb-26 22:34:39

Today's Facebook "gems" were a
Taurine soup dish (soup tureen!l
closely followed by a "dire cutter for crafts"
grin

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BoggledMind Sat 21-Feb-26 22:37:30

RosiesMawagain

Today's Facebook "gems" were a
Taurine soup dish (soup tureen!l
closely followed by a "dire cutter for crafts"
grin

Grim

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Luckygirl3 Sat 21-Feb-26 22:39:21

I think it is drifting into common parlance now to the point where it will become acceptable at some point in the way that language changes and develops. I know it makes no grammatical sense, but we know what is meant so I guess we have to go with the flow. Hopefully it will stop grating after a while.

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Luckygirl3 Sat 21-Feb-26 22:39:58

I think some of the mistakes on social media are down to the spellchecker.

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BoggledMind Sat 21-Feb-26 22:43:07

Luckygirl3

I think it is drifting into common parlance now to the point where it will become acceptable at some point in the way that language changes and develops. I know it makes no grammatical sense, but we know what is meant so I guess we have to go with the flow. Hopefully it will stop grating after a while.

It pains me to say this but I have to agree. Language does evolve, but it doesn't make it any easier to read.

Don't get me started on text speak (txt spk).

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Amatxi Sat 21-Feb-26 22:46:12

New to this and was looking tor a "like" or "agree" button.

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MaizieD Sat 21-Feb-26 22:50:12

‘dire cutter’ has me completely baffled…

My current pet peeve is ‘forbidden from’.

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MaizieD Sat 21-Feb-26 22:55:19

Amatxi

New to this and was looking tor a "like" or "agree" button.

We have neither. It’s periodically discussed and the consensus seems to be that it could encourage cliquieness (made up word?)

Liking is often expressed by quoting the post (see the button on the top right) and using a clap 👏 emoji…

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BoggledMind Sat 21-Feb-26 23:08:57

MaizieD

I agree. I have experience of 'likes' being used to 'gang up' on others. An unfortunate misuse of a decent option.

Thanks for the tip regarding 👏

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Nannee49 Sat 21-Feb-26 23:39:41

It's die cutter MaizieD though dire cutter does sound like an apprentice print worker not quite getting the hang of the jobconfused

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