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This pair and many other synonyms like it are confused because of the Whole Language Approach to teaching reading. It's ducking fumb. (Former English teacher).
For English...teach the alphabet, then phonics, then words, then well, complete thoughts AND how to organize them would be swell. But America is NO place for smart people right now.
What is the "whole language approach"?
I remember phonics being the absolute dumbest schoolwork I've ever done. Endless workbooks full of shit I already knew because the teachers just had us read out loud every day. Why memorize the thousand rules and countless exceptions to them that make up the English language when you could just read stories?
Phonics is how we sound out new words. All the research shows that understanding phonics makes reading easier and faster. There's been a big push away from this in the last few years, and more towards getting kids to memorize the pronunciation and meanings of words instead of their parts. So instead of learning cuh ahh tuh makes CAT, they're just told CAT = CAT with no further context
Even to this day I'm sounding out words I haven't encountered before. It really does help. I'm not even sure how I would read and comprehend a complicated new word if I didn't sound it out.
Although I doesn't *always* work. For years I didn't realize that `voila` was the same word for as people saying "wah lah". It wasn't until I heard someone throwing a hint of the "V" in there that I caught on
Breaking down long/complicated words to say it properly in a timely manner is apparently something that my (20M) friends are envious of. "Perspicacity" was one that my buddies struggled with.
These all bother me.
This one isn't about homophones, but "all the sudden" drives me absolutely crazy, to the point where it can be a deal breaker in a relationship.
I know some very intelligent people, successful and driven, who absolutely can not get those correct. Like, they post on their business social media and get them wrong. They just look dumb.
Its becoming one though. The English language evolves thats why we have 2 definitions for "Literally" which is wild to me. But thats what languages do.
Oh I see it a few times a week at least. I work online for a living though so I see grammatical shit on the reg. Anything and everything. And yes, to and too is atrocious.
What I really hate about loose lose is that grammar kr spell or auto correct often miss the typo. But as the words are closely spelled o view it more if a typo than the misused homophones
Pretty sure "it's" is also an abbreviation of "has" as well. For example used in past perfect tense "It has been a while./It's been a while" Similarly like when "have" is shortened to "ve" on the end of "could/would/should".
I never know which to use with these. One minute affect is before (it won't affect you) and effect is after (it didn't effect you), then it's the other way around (won't effect and didn't affect), either way I'm always wrong so I avoid using it where possible
Effect is usually a noun and affect is usually a verb, but both can be either. Here's a pretty good guide to when to use which, and how:
[https://www.dictionary.com/e/affect-vs-effect/](https://www.dictionary.com/e/affect-vs-effect/)
Their quick summary:
>*Affect* is most commonly used as a verb meaning “to act on or produce a change in someone or something.” *Effect* is most commonly used as a noun meaning “a result or consequence,” as in cause and effect. But *effect* can also be used as a verb meaning to make happen, most commonly in the phrase *effect change*. And *affect* can also be used as a noun referring to a state of emotion, as in *He had a sad affect*.
\[Edited to fix my good-grief-insomnia-sucks word swap.\]
Affect is a verb so use it with action. Effect is a noun. To remember just think a = action and you'll remember affect is a verb.
For example, "The new policy will affect you." You use affect here because the affect means an action will happen to you.
But in this sentence, "The effect of the new policy is shorter work weeks", you use effect because it is not an action.
Affect is also a noun.
> He had a noticeable negative emotional affect from the new medication.
They can both be nouns and verbs, and their meaning changes when the context changes to the point they may as well be 4 different words(noun effect, verb effect, noun affect, verb affect).
As a noun an effect is a distinct change. The new policy's effect was immediate.
As a verb to effect means to alter something that already exists. The new policy effected a 30% increase in profits.
As a noun an affect is a new state(not always a change). He had a noticeable negative emotional affect from the new medication.
As a verb to affect means to cause a change. The new policy affected holiday pay.
"Tow the line" always bugs me. It's "toe the line". Like, you aren't willing to step over the line. What is "towing the line"? Do people think they're using a nautical term or something?
then and than as well. i mean if you are a native speaker then you should be better than me in english roght? (i hope i used them correctly but if i didnt its def intentional ;) )
My second language helped with things like to & too. To=去(qù), too=很/非常(hen/fēi cháng) or 也(ye) for too=also
Although I agree loose and lose are a bit confusing, since "if your bracelet is loose, you might lose it." I just imagine lose *lost* an O, and loose have wider (thus looser) O.
Hehe
Not just plural. Just "here comes an 's'!"
I recently saw something very close to this in a published book:
>Jame's stood abruptly, his chair clattering to the floor.
Like... that's not even plural and people *should* know that there's no apostrophe in James. It didn't have the apostrophe anywhere else in the book either, so it's not like it was a deliberate choice to make a "different" name.
Or people who spell “a lot” as alot, that always makes me think of the Oatmeal comic
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html
There’s a couple real estate agents in my area that use the word lose in their tag phrases online except they use loose instead. Also they’ll advertise as SNEAK PEAK instead of peek and it drives me bonkers. Looks uneducated and unprofessional.
I used to play world of warcraft a long time ago and there was another player who was like.. just the worst human being ever. He was a guild master and he would promote new members up to high ranks if they were females but slowly promoted guys who had been in that guild for years. Just a total piece of shit. The realm hated him.
He had a lot of trolls in world chat who would call him out on his behavior. His go-to insult was always "whatever, you guys are loosers!" That shit always cracked me up. He used to also use "your" wrong and are in place of our. "Your just jealous of are guild". I'm lookin at you Sindarian - Caelestrasz circa 2007
that one gets me too. Maybe it just sticks out more to me. I wonder how it can be confused. Loose, noose, tooth, booth all rhyme with the oo sound...I just thought of something, though. What rhymes with lose that sounds like lose? You have lose, nose, hose...but hose and nose don't sound like lose...maybe that's why it's confused. What sounds like lose and is also spelled like it? I can't think of anything. hm...I just realized this when replying to you. Interesting.
How can people not know how to spell the word lose?! It drives me fucking insane. It’s literally first grade spelling. Some people are just dumb I guess, definitely what I assume if you don’t know the difference between lose and loose.
I think that there is just a significant portion of the population who just don't care to know the difference. I think they just can't be bothered. It's not that they're incapable of learning or remembering the difference, they just don't care enough to do so.
I think this is the reason too. Knowing the difference between “their, there, they’re, etc” is not rocket science at all. They just don’t care. Some of them are proud that they don’t care.
Less than 50% of USA adults (18 or older) have a reading comprehension 6th grade or better, per 2020 study. Snopes confirmed the legitimacy of the article. On mobile, else I’d post a link.
54% of adults are below 6th grade reading level for prose. The majority of those are immigrants (mostly Latin American) and other low income groups that can’t afford to focus on school. Aka mostly southern populations.
https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFoundation_GainsFromEradicatingIlliteracy_9_8.pdf
Yeah. That could have been the case 20+ years ago. But in the social media and texting world. Pretty sure there will be AT LEAST ONE person calling you out on using the wrong spelling. After that, I am assuming you're just choosing to stay dumb.
Edit: when I say that someone calling you out, I mean there will be at least one comment with good faith breaking out the difference between the spellings.
Yesss. I bite my tongue so often I need weekly blood transfusions to stay alive (kidding, but you get my point), but on the rare occasion when I can't help myself and I dare to point out bad grammar or incorrect word usage online, I experience an instant barrage of, "What are you, the grammar police?" or "It's the internet, no one cares."
I care, why don't YOU care?!
Granted, I have a degree in communications, but this is shit we learned in grade school. It's not like it took going to college for me to start spelling correctly or stop talking like a country bumpkin.
I hate ALL the examples already listed (and thank you for providing a safe space to say so), but my recent least favorite is using AN instead of AND.
"I take bread an toast it, an add mayo an tomato an it's so good!"
Seriously? How lazy can you get? It already only has THREE fucking letters! Even worse is when someone uses it between big words that could more understandably be abbreviated.
"I'm trying to decide where to move. My options are a condominium an a recreational vehicle."
"Could/should/would of" hurts me in particular because it's not just a typo. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the English language.
>I have done this. I should have done this.
>I of done this. I should of done this.
I'm not so sure about that....
Most dumb people I know are very aware of their lack of smarts and, thus, are very sensitive and defensive about it. It's a significant esteem issue for them, and they lash out whenever someone triggers their insecurity.
Needs capital letters on the proper noun Buffalo otherwise it's technically incorrect.
That's also why it's best out loud or in title case(every word is capitalised).
“To” vs “Too” bugs me. Also, so many people use the singular possessive instead of simply adding an “s” to pluralize a word - e.g., “We rode our bike’s to the store.”
To be fair on that one, autocorrect always tries to change my plural days to possessive, and I have no idea why. I use plural way more often. It did it often enough I started wondering if maybe plural days are just weird like that (they aren’t)
I used to work with a woman in her 60s who said she dropped out of school in 8th grade to work on the farm, so her grammar was always pretty rough when she wrote stuff. She put " 's" in a lot of the wrong places too.
One time she left me a sticky note saying "we need more boxe's to pack with"
It was early in the morning and I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what a "boxe" was.
Because when I taught it, they decided to turn around and talk to their friends instead. Or they scoffed and said “this is too easy,” or, “when are we ever going to use this in real life?”. When we practiced, they decided to sit there and stare at a wall. When we did the game for it, they decided to just use a cheat code without looking at the content. Basically, they spent more energy avoiding learning than if they had actually engaged in the lesson.
Sorry, I’m a little tired right now.
Nah you’re right for the most part it’s the same reason some fucking kids can’t read for shit. Back when I was in school shit was mad funny to pick someone that couldn’t read and watch them struggle and read at a snails pace for like 5 minutes. Rather be fucking around than learning basic English. Then again they’re fucking kids they don’t know any better until it’s too late.
For some people these all sound exactly the same. And if their main association with words are the sounds instead of sight, they're more likely to confuse them with each other. Some people hear each differently (their rhymes with her, there rhymes with air, and they're maintains they with just a shortened er or ur tacked on). People that hear them differently are less likely to confuse them, even if they never learned what type of word each one is.
And even if people learned in school the specifics of their is a determiner and they're is a pronoun-verb contraction, people don't actively think about how a word functions or diagram a sentence to make sure they selected the correct word every time they communicate in writing. And most of the time writing the incorrect word of the three doesn't make the intended meaning difficult to understand. It's usually just something that other people notice as incorrect, but the meaning is clear.
Also, autocorrect and speech-to-text are awful at selecting the correct one.
I pronounce all three the same. I think it’s more about understanding the actual meaning of each word, that people don’t understand or care enough to remember.
Half the top comments about how the education system is failing, or that people are apathetic learners, or whatever, contain multiple typos (I'm aware of the numerous joke comments, but there are many completely sincere mistakes).
Then they have edits saying "oh sorry I was tired" or "typing quickly" or whatever. But leave the original argument unaltered.
Like really? It's because everyone is less intelligent than you? Not because they are making the exact same mistake you are literally apologizing for?
No, it's because people type thousands of words per day, and it's not meant to be this permanent perfectly clear record for the ages. It's a minor typo, and it's not worth stressing over.
They're, their, and there are also some of the least confusing words to mix up. The context of the sentence almost always gives enough information to discern the intended meaning.
Same reason they don't know the difference between effect and affect, then and than, or know that items that can be individually counted are "number of" not "amount of", which is used for things than are measured by volume or weight.
For example, "number of people", "number of cups or glasses", "amount of water" amount of sand", and so on. Same with "few" and "less".
If it sounds stupid to say "fewer" or "number of", the the right word is"less" or"amount ".
For example, you wouldn't say "fewer water", it sounds wrong. So you'd say "less water", and be correct. Likewise, you wouldn't say "number of air", it sounds wrong. You'd say "amount of air", and be correct.
You can count people. So it's "number of people", not "amount of people". Every time I see "amount of people", I think something like, "What, 2,000 pounds of people? 40 gallons of people?" 🤦
In the US, our education system is broken. To add to that, we now have a culture that ridicules intelligence. Stupidity and ignorance are not just tolerated, but encouraged.
FFS, it's OK to be smart.
Native English speakers learnt English through speaking, and then writing was learnt after, so it’s natural that words thag sound the same would be confused.
Yep - every language has mistakes that only natives make for this exact reason
For example in my native language (Brazilian Portuguese) very common mistakes are "a gente" (informal we / us) x "agente" (agent) or "sessão" (session, period of time) x "seção" (section, division) x "cessão" (to give)
Even people who know the correct way to use them, sometimes make an error through lack of concentration. Others just don't know the difference. That is not necessarily a failure in education. People forget these thing, especially if they don't write very often. Remember too, that a lot of people here are not native speakers, making it a little more confusing for them.
Incidentally, this particular error is actually significantly more common with natives than second language learners. It has to do with initially learning by sound instead of text, using the sounds as the reference point internally instead of the text while writing, and second language learners typically heavily use texts while learning and writing. Words like there/their and to/too are heavily used, so they will spend a lot of time focused on them, so it's often not a huge problem and they even get confused why some natives have so much trouble.
There are examples like this in many languages, where natives have more trouble with aspects of the written form than competent second language learners.
I love that half the comments here are people irritated by people who essentially can't spell, while the rest are saying it doesn't matter.
Indeed it doesn't matter. Why would it matter? Let's all spell things however we want from now on, with everyone having their own set of grammar and rules. I'm sure that won't cause any problems.
I think it just depends on if you read a lot as a child, because I can very easily tell which one to use whereas people who maybe didn’t read as much are more likely to make a mistake. Read y’all!
I see it happen all the time. Sometimes it picks the wrong word. Often partially typing a word and pressing space allows auto correct to choose the word for you. And, the predictive text feature employed by auto correct means that you reinforce use of the wrong word the more you allow auto correct to pick it for you. Auto correct also uses text replacements which might replace what you typed with the incorrect word. This, plus a general lack of proofreading our texts means lose often is replaced with loose.
Autocorrect always changes “were” to “we’re” , especially at the front of a sentence. It’s so annoying. (It even changed it when I was trying to type this comment).
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Loose vs lose seems dumber to me
Your and you’re 🤦🏽♂️
i'll do you one better are and our. this happens way too much in my age group (very early 20s)
Mixing “are” and “our” can only be explained by total illiteracy.
This pair and many other synonyms like it are confused because of the Whole Language Approach to teaching reading. It's ducking fumb. (Former English teacher). For English...teach the alphabet, then phonics, then words, then well, complete thoughts AND how to organize them would be swell. But America is NO place for smart people right now.
Homophones
i’m so glad I wasn’t the only one who caught this apparent former english teaching lacking
What is the "whole language approach"? I remember phonics being the absolute dumbest schoolwork I've ever done. Endless workbooks full of shit I already knew because the teachers just had us read out loud every day. Why memorize the thousand rules and countless exceptions to them that make up the English language when you could just read stories?
Phonics is how we sound out new words. All the research shows that understanding phonics makes reading easier and faster. There's been a big push away from this in the last few years, and more towards getting kids to memorize the pronunciation and meanings of words instead of their parts. So instead of learning cuh ahh tuh makes CAT, they're just told CAT = CAT with no further context
I remember learning phonics. And I’m grateful for it very often. It’s a very useful tool.
Frankly, I'm hooked on phonics
Huckd on fonix werkd four mi.
Even to this day I'm sounding out words I haven't encountered before. It really does help. I'm not even sure how I would read and comprehend a complicated new word if I didn't sound it out. Although I doesn't *always* work. For years I didn't realize that `voila` was the same word for as people saying "wah lah". It wasn't until I heard someone throwing a hint of the "V" in there that I caught on
Breaking down long/complicated words to say it properly in a timely manner is apparently something that my (20M) friends are envious of. "Perspicacity" was one that my buddies struggled with.
Not synonym. Homophone.
You shouldn't of said that. (That actually hurt to type)
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Wtf where do you live that a middle school teacher doesn't care if their student is using "are" or "our" properly?
Using "This" instead of "these." People even speak it incorrectly!
You win. That’s disgusting 👏
These all bother me. This one isn't about homophones, but "all the sudden" drives me absolutely crazy, to the point where it can be a deal breaker in a relationship.
And I'm still mad about "on accident". BY accident, ON purpose, for fuck's sake.
Could care less Yeah, that means you care...?
That was one I saw on an Arby's marquee: "Try Are Cheesecake Poppers!"
I know some very intelligent people, successful and driven, who absolutely can not get those correct. Like, they post on their business social media and get them wrong. They just look dumb.
'apart' vs 'a part' is the one that drives me mad because they mean the exact opposite.
Aloud and allowed Also alot is not a word
How about payed instead of paid it drives me nuts.
Neither is noone
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Its becoming one though. The English language evolves thats why we have 2 definitions for "Literally" which is wild to me. But thats what languages do.
Hate it!!! 😂
Should of is pretty dopey too
Should of, could of, would of. Like.... ugh.
It's the worst.
That’s much less common. There and their are everyday words. To & too drive me crazy.
Oh I see it a few times a week at least. I work online for a living though so I see grammatical shit on the reg. Anything and everything. And yes, to and too is atrocious.
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Punctuation, please. "You could have graduated from MIT; I don't care."
What I really hate about loose lose is that grammar kr spell or auto correct often miss the typo. But as the words are closely spelled o view it more if a typo than the misused homophones
It's a lose-loose situation.
Thanks dad
I view it as stupidity 😂
>To & too drive me crazy. And affect/effect
And insure/ensure.
I roll my eyes when I see someone say that TIPS stands for To Insure Prompt Service.
This is a huge pet peeve. Even if it meant either one of those words it wouldn't happen AFTER service!
Now we have to get insurance for the service we receive? Fucking hell.
I blame the advent of textspeak for people trying to make random words into acronyms.
And its vs it's. My 5th grade teacher only said it once: "It's" can only mean one thing. "It is." Why do I feel I was the only one to get that memo?
Pretty sure "it's" is also an abbreviation of "has" as well. For example used in past perfect tense "It has been a while./It's been a while" Similarly like when "have" is shortened to "ve" on the end of "could/would/should".
You are correct. "Would of" and its equally ignorant cousin "could of" drive me fucking nuts.
I never know which to use with these. One minute affect is before (it won't affect you) and effect is after (it didn't effect you), then it's the other way around (won't effect and didn't affect), either way I'm always wrong so I avoid using it where possible
Effect is usually a noun and affect is usually a verb, but both can be either. Here's a pretty good guide to when to use which, and how: [https://www.dictionary.com/e/affect-vs-effect/](https://www.dictionary.com/e/affect-vs-effect/) Their quick summary: >*Affect* is most commonly used as a verb meaning “to act on or produce a change in someone or something.” *Effect* is most commonly used as a noun meaning “a result or consequence,” as in cause and effect. But *effect* can also be used as a verb meaning to make happen, most commonly in the phrase *effect change*. And *affect* can also be used as a noun referring to a state of emotion, as in *He had a sad affect*. \[Edited to fix my good-grief-insomnia-sucks word swap.\]
The quote is more correct than your comment. You have them backwards in your comment (affect is usually a verb, effect is usually a noun).
Oh good bloody grief -- thank you. Fixed. I need about five hours' more sleep. :(
No worries! Hopefully you're asleep now and won't see this for at least 5 more hours =)
It's been about 5 hours as of this comment. Hope you got enough rest!
Affect is a verb so use it with action. Effect is a noun. To remember just think a = action and you'll remember affect is a verb. For example, "The new policy will affect you." You use affect here because the affect means an action will happen to you. But in this sentence, "The effect of the new policy is shorter work weeks", you use effect because it is not an action.
Affect is also a noun. > He had a noticeable negative emotional affect from the new medication. They can both be nouns and verbs, and their meaning changes when the context changes to the point they may as well be 4 different words(noun effect, verb effect, noun affect, verb affect). As a noun an effect is a distinct change. The new policy's effect was immediate. As a verb to effect means to alter something that already exists. The new policy effected a 30% increase in profits. As a noun an affect is a new state(not always a change). He had a noticeable negative emotional affect from the new medication. As a verb to affect means to cause a change. The new policy affected holiday pay.
While true, mostly affect as a verb and effect as a noun is correct. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/affect-vs-effect-usage-difference
"Tow the line" always bugs me. It's "toe the line". Like, you aren't willing to step over the line. What is "towing the line"? Do people think they're using a nautical term or something?
then and than as well. i mean if you are a native speaker then you should be better than me in english roght? (i hope i used them correctly but if i didnt its def intentional ;) )
My second language helped with things like to & too. To=去(qù), too=很/非常(hen/fēi cháng) or 也(ye) for too=also Although I agree loose and lose are a bit confusing, since "if your bracelet is loose, you might lose it." I just imagine lose *lost* an O, and loose have wider (thus looser) O. Hehe
Me two
Me too. But, I've also had issues where I typed the correct word, but auto-incorrect decided to change it.
The worst is when they use " 's " for something plural instead of just " s "
This is a big one for me. Why does EVERYONE think there is an apostrophe involved in pluralizing a word??!!
Not just plural. Just "here comes an 's'!" I recently saw something very close to this in a published book: >Jame's stood abruptly, his chair clattering to the floor. Like... that's not even plural and people *should* know that there's no apostrophe in James. It didn't have the apostrophe anywhere else in the book either, so it's not like it was a deliberate choice to make a "different" name.
Loose and lose is bad but two others kill me: breathe and breath, and your and you’re
Also sale and sell...can't count the number of times I've seen those two misused.
Then vs Than
Defiantly vs definitely, sweaty vs sweetie (this one is particularly silly when arguing with someone online lol)
I've noticed a lot of people not knowing the difference between woman/women -- like man vs men .. really? It's not that hard.
Yeah this one is becoming the norm. And I judge so hard when I see it.
weary and wary. I've seen that one a few times too many.
Or people who spell “a lot” as alot, that always makes me think of the Oatmeal comic http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html
It makes me crazy when I see people use then and than incorrectly.
And weight/weigh too. I've heard "loose weight" and "weight myself" plenty of times. It drives me absolute nuts.
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peek peak and pique are the worst, I swear most people cant tell the difference or something
There’s a couple real estate agents in my area that use the word lose in their tag phrases online except they use loose instead. Also they’ll advertise as SNEAK PEAK instead of peek and it drives me bonkers. Looks uneducated and unprofessional.
Could of instead of could have always gets under my skin.
Payed vs paid, like idk how it’s the former all the time.
Also using seen instead of saw
It's a common error. Or its. Or I'ts. I't's.
Also Does / Dose, how do you even mess that up.
As a clinician, regimen vs. regime used to really annoy me. Now, the acceptance of ignorance is just so prevalent I gotta concede defeat on that one
I used to play world of warcraft a long time ago and there was another player who was like.. just the worst human being ever. He was a guild master and he would promote new members up to high ranks if they were females but slowly promoted guys who had been in that guild for years. Just a total piece of shit. The realm hated him. He had a lot of trolls in world chat who would call him out on his behavior. His go-to insult was always "whatever, you guys are loosers!" That shit always cracked me up. He used to also use "your" wrong and are in place of our. "Your just jealous of are guild". I'm lookin at you Sindarian - Caelestrasz circa 2007
Awhile back, I had a text me “I need to axe you something.” And I could not fathom how they confused asked with axe.
that one gets me too. Maybe it just sticks out more to me. I wonder how it can be confused. Loose, noose, tooth, booth all rhyme with the oo sound...I just thought of something, though. What rhymes with lose that sounds like lose? You have lose, nose, hose...but hose and nose don't sound like lose...maybe that's why it's confused. What sounds like lose and is also spelled like it? I can't think of anything. hm...I just realized this when replying to you. Interesting.
I see this one all of the time and it pisses me off so bad. I had an ex who would call people "looser" instead of loser.
Than and then mystifies me
How can people not know how to spell the word lose?! It drives me fucking insane. It’s literally first grade spelling. Some people are just dumb I guess, definitely what I assume if you don’t know the difference between lose and loose.
I think that there is just a significant portion of the population who just don't care to know the difference. I think they just can't be bothered. It's not that they're incapable of learning or remembering the difference, they just don't care enough to do so.
I think this is the reason too. Knowing the difference between “their, there, they’re, etc” is not rocket science at all. They just don’t care. Some of them are proud that they don’t care.
Not only is it not rocket science, its taught at a grade 6 reading level.
Lol wtf this was like 2nd or 3rd grade
I distinctly remember a context-based spelling test covering “their” “there” and “they’re” in third grade.
What percent of the country even reads at a 6th grade level or better?
Less than 50% of USA adults (18 or older) have a reading comprehension 6th grade or better, per 2020 study. Snopes confirmed the legitimacy of the article. On mobile, else I’d post a link.
54% of adults are below 6th grade reading level for prose. The majority of those are immigrants (mostly Latin American) and other low income groups that can’t afford to focus on school. Aka mostly southern populations. https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFoundation_GainsFromEradicatingIlliteracy_9_8.pdf
Yeah. That could have been the case 20+ years ago. But in the social media and texting world. Pretty sure there will be AT LEAST ONE person calling you out on using the wrong spelling. After that, I am assuming you're just choosing to stay dumb. Edit: when I say that someone calling you out, I mean there will be at least one comment with good faith breaking out the difference between the spellings.
Yesss. I bite my tongue so often I need weekly blood transfusions to stay alive (kidding, but you get my point), but on the rare occasion when I can't help myself and I dare to point out bad grammar or incorrect word usage online, I experience an instant barrage of, "What are you, the grammar police?" or "It's the internet, no one cares." I care, why don't YOU care?! Granted, I have a degree in communications, but this is shit we learned in grade school. It's not like it took going to college for me to start spelling correctly or stop talking like a country bumpkin. I hate ALL the examples already listed (and thank you for providing a safe space to say so), but my recent least favorite is using AN instead of AND. "I take bread an toast it, an add mayo an tomato an it's so good!" Seriously? How lazy can you get? It already only has THREE fucking letters! Even worse is when someone uses it between big words that could more understandably be abbreviated. "I'm trying to decide where to move. My options are a condominium an a recreational vehicle."
Well, you could of just mind your own business. /s I still can't wrap my head around this incorrect usage
"Could/should/would of" hurts me in particular because it's not just a typo. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the English language. >I have done this. I should have done this. >I of done this. I should of done this.
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I'm not so sure about that.... Most dumb people I know are very aware of their lack of smarts and, thus, are very sensitive and defensive about it. It's a significant esteem issue for them, and they lash out whenever someone triggers their insecurity.
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English is hard. It can be learned through tough thorough thought, though.
I had to read that five times I think before it formed a sentence. Well done.
i got it first try and was so proud of myself bc i thought i was gonna screw it up. edit: this is what my life is becoming.
Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo
Needs capital letters on the proper noun Buffalo otherwise it's technically incorrect. That's also why it's best out loud or in title case(every word is capitalised).
All the experiences with English I had had had had a profound impact on me realizing this as well.
They’re isn’t enough evidence to support there claims, leave your complaints over their, sir.
*you're
Haha I should have used ‘you’re’ you genius!
Should of*
Shouldn't'n'v'st'd
Their is a chance that during they're education they weren't listening to there teacher.
They’re’s definitely a chance of that their
I felt the pain reading this sentence 🥲
![gif](emote|free_emotes_pack|joy)![gif](emote|free_emotes_pack|joy)![gif](emote|free_emotes_pack|joy)![gif](emote|free_emotes_pack|joy)
The amount of people correcting you 😂🤣
Sarcasm is a lost art.
Grammar Nazis are a pretty brazen group.
“Number of people”
Yeah, they do this alot, to.
Your right
No, their dumb!
Two dumb too take advantage of there education.
There morans to.
“To” vs “Too” bugs me. Also, so many people use the singular possessive instead of simply adding an “s” to pluralize a word - e.g., “We rode our bike’s to the store.”
Absolutely hate the errant apostrophes when people try to make a word plural. Just a big sign on a cleaners last week: “Open on Saturday’s!”
“.99¢” is one that always annoys me. I see it all the time in stores. I hate it.
Reminds me of a tag at the store I work at that said $.099 so I rang them up for 10¢ lol
To be fair on that one, autocorrect always tries to change my plural days to possessive, and I have no idea why. I use plural way more often. It did it often enough I started wondering if maybe plural days are just weird like that (they aren’t)
I used to work with a woman in her 60s who said she dropped out of school in 8th grade to work on the farm, so her grammar was always pretty rough when she wrote stuff. She put " 's" in a lot of the wrong places too. One time she left me a sticky note saying "we need more boxe's to pack with" It was early in the morning and I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what a "boxe" was.
Yes. Thank you for that! I've met my people! I'm home!
Because when I taught it, they decided to turn around and talk to their friends instead. Or they scoffed and said “this is too easy,” or, “when are we ever going to use this in real life?”. When we practiced, they decided to sit there and stare at a wall. When we did the game for it, they decided to just use a cheat code without looking at the content. Basically, they spent more energy avoiding learning than if they had actually engaged in the lesson. Sorry, I’m a little tired right now.
Well said. Thank you for that one.
Nah you’re right for the most part it’s the same reason some fucking kids can’t read for shit. Back when I was in school shit was mad funny to pick someone that couldn’t read and watch them struggle and read at a snails pace for like 5 minutes. Rather be fucking around than learning basic English. Then again they’re fucking kids they don’t know any better until it’s too late.
Kids are adults in training and if they don't train, they turn into useless adults
Preach👏🏻👏🏻 My mom is also a teacher and deals with this *daily*
For some people these all sound exactly the same. And if their main association with words are the sounds instead of sight, they're more likely to confuse them with each other. Some people hear each differently (their rhymes with her, there rhymes with air, and they're maintains they with just a shortened er or ur tacked on). People that hear them differently are less likely to confuse them, even if they never learned what type of word each one is. And even if people learned in school the specifics of their is a determiner and they're is a pronoun-verb contraction, people don't actively think about how a word functions or diagram a sentence to make sure they selected the correct word every time they communicate in writing. And most of the time writing the incorrect word of the three doesn't make the intended meaning difficult to understand. It's usually just something that other people notice as incorrect, but the meaning is clear. Also, autocorrect and speech-to-text are awful at selecting the correct one.
In what places do people pronounce them differently? I’ve never heard of that.
They’re all supposed to sound the same.
They all do sound the same. But then and than sound completely different and people still mix them up.
I pronounce all three the same. I think it’s more about understanding the actual meaning of each word, that people don’t understand or care enough to remember.
No-one nose.
You missed the silent k and w in your words. It should be: Know won nose.
Same with then vs than.
This one makes me crazy!
Wait until you see Der, Die , Das, and its quadrillion forms.
It's mostly just people just quickly typing and not thinking about it.
Half the top comments about how the education system is failing, or that people are apathetic learners, or whatever, contain multiple typos (I'm aware of the numerous joke comments, but there are many completely sincere mistakes). Then they have edits saying "oh sorry I was tired" or "typing quickly" or whatever. But leave the original argument unaltered. Like really? It's because everyone is less intelligent than you? Not because they are making the exact same mistake you are literally apologizing for? No, it's because people type thousands of words per day, and it's not meant to be this permanent perfectly clear record for the ages. It's a minor typo, and it's not worth stressing over. They're, their, and there are also some of the least confusing words to mix up. The context of the sentence almost always gives enough information to discern the intended meaning.
Same reason they don't know the difference between effect and affect, then and than, or know that items that can be individually counted are "number of" not "amount of", which is used for things than are measured by volume or weight. For example, "number of people", "number of cups or glasses", "amount of water" amount of sand", and so on. Same with "few" and "less". If it sounds stupid to say "fewer" or "number of", the the right word is"less" or"amount ". For example, you wouldn't say "fewer water", it sounds wrong. So you'd say "less water", and be correct. Likewise, you wouldn't say "number of air", it sounds wrong. You'd say "amount of air", and be correct. You can count people. So it's "number of people", not "amount of people". Every time I see "amount of people", I think something like, "What, 2,000 pounds of people? 40 gallons of people?" 🤦 In the US, our education system is broken. To add to that, we now have a culture that ridicules intelligence. Stupidity and ignorance are not just tolerated, but encouraged. FFS, it's OK to be smart.
Their probably just not very smart. Or maybe there school did a bad job of explaining it. I guess they're could be multiple explanations.
I just threw all types of mental tantrums. 😂 Good shit.
Native English speakers learnt English through speaking, and then writing was learnt after, so it’s natural that words thag sound the same would be confused.
Yep - every language has mistakes that only natives make for this exact reason For example in my native language (Brazilian Portuguese) very common mistakes are "a gente" (informal we / us) x "agente" (agent) or "sessão" (session, period of time) x "seção" (section, division) x "cessão" (to give)
\>learnt English can't even decide how to spell between native speaking countries, how are we expecting everyone to remember 3 homophones?
US: learned, UK: learnt
Thags a good point
*Thag's
Same reason Spanish speakers often leave out silent H or confuse B and V. Second language learners almost never make those mistakes.
Even people who know the correct way to use them, sometimes make an error through lack of concentration. Others just don't know the difference. That is not necessarily a failure in education. People forget these thing, especially if they don't write very often. Remember too, that a lot of people here are not native speakers, making it a little more confusing for them.
And sometimes they do know, but autocorrect doesn't and they don't notice
Incidentally, this particular error is actually significantly more common with natives than second language learners. It has to do with initially learning by sound instead of text, using the sounds as the reference point internally instead of the text while writing, and second language learners typically heavily use texts while learning and writing. Words like there/their and to/too are heavily used, so they will spend a lot of time focused on them, so it's often not a huge problem and they even get confused why some natives have so much trouble. There are examples like this in many languages, where natives have more trouble with aspects of the written form than competent second language learners.
The phone doesn't always use the correct form if using talk to text too.
I'm sorry but 'your' and 'you're' is the worst for me.
I love that half the comments here are people irritated by people who essentially can't spell, while the rest are saying it doesn't matter. Indeed it doesn't matter. Why would it matter? Let's all spell things however we want from now on, with everyone having their own set of grammar and rules. I'm sure that won't cause any problems.
"should of" or "would of" instead of 'should've' or 'would've' etc. these are plentiful on tik tok. its really sad
I think it just depends on if you read a lot as a child, because I can very easily tell which one to use whereas people who maybe didn’t read as much are more likely to make a mistake. Read y’all!
*gestures broadly to the american education system*
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Why just American? It’s everywhere
Should of known alot of peeple are literal loosers.
Would of instead of would've drives me INSANE.
Non native English speaker here. Good question. I learned them from the first time.
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I generally assume it's from the auto correct feature on our phones.
Auto correct always dicks up its and it's for me.
Why would auto correct change it? It's not like it's fucking being changed to ducking
I see it happen all the time. Sometimes it picks the wrong word. Often partially typing a word and pressing space allows auto correct to choose the word for you. And, the predictive text feature employed by auto correct means that you reinforce use of the wrong word the more you allow auto correct to pick it for you. Auto correct also uses text replacements which might replace what you typed with the incorrect word. This, plus a general lack of proofreading our texts means lose often is replaced with loose.
Autocorrect always changes “were” to “we’re” , especially at the front of a sentence. It’s so annoying. (It even changed it when I was trying to type this comment).
Same here, this one happens all the time on my phone
Because a large chunk of the population reads at an elementary level.
.....or your & you're! Holy shit one of my peeves.
"I could care less." Jesus Christ. Most of the things here are misspellings, but this one, *do you even consider the meaning of the words you say???*
Barley instead of barely. *cringes*
That definatly pisses me off
Defiantly pisses me off, too.
I love the smell of a man’s colon
because they're the heir to their throne. spelling is for losers. I hardly ever encounter this.. and when I do, I do not care. I still understand it.
which witch is which?
Maybe deer not paying attention 😂