I kan reed good. I jus kant spel me nuthin.
This drives me insane too, and what makes it especially infuriating is it appears to be a genuine currently-occurring shift in spoken language brought about by poor spelling.
Could have
-> Spoken as “could’ve”
-> Heard/written as “could of”
-> Read as “could of”
-> Spoken as “could of”
That is to say, I’m pretty sure there’s a portion of the population now who say “could’ve” genuinely believing it’s “could of,” and that mistake informs their lexicon in subtle yet horrifying ways.
Irregardless is a perfectly cromulent word. I like it because it embiggens my vocabulary.
I certainly know ‘irrespective’, and still say ‘irregardless’ from time to time. I also say ‘ain’t’, ‘could of’, ‘might can’, and any other number of incorrect phrases. It’s not like anybody has any doubt what I mean. It’s just vernacular, ya know? I don’t write any of these (at least in formal writing), but wouldn’t be surprised at all if it becomes more common in written English as time goes by.
Heh, apparently the Firefox spell-checker has irregardless in it.
You obviously hang around a high-falutin’, crudité eating, multi-colander owning crowd - around these parts women just say ‘On the rag.’
I must admit, 'On my menstrual cycle." sounds a bit gentler, incorrectness notwithstanding.
Next time he/she tries to say that, you better head’em off at the past.
‘Might can’?
Sometimes I feel like I’m drownding in poor language use.
You could be right. It just means that whomever is writing it does not think, else they would realize that there is no way those two words can work together. Absent punctuation to separate sentences, clauses, or phrases, I can’t think of any use where ‘of’ might follow “could” (would, should, might, etc.). Just as concerning is that this is somehow not addressed and stomped dead, dead, dead throughout schooling. I know my complaints to middle and high school teachers to more aggressively police grammar, even if just to point out errors instead of marking them down, fell on deaf ears. I’ve known a few teachers who could’ve use someone correcting their grammar.
I’m not perfect, but this error, when written, really makes me stabby.
In all seriousness, language would be far less useful, less fun, and less of an art if it never changed or if rules weren’t broken. As long as your intended audience understands you, who the fuck cares? You gotta let this stuff go. Language is an organic thing that can’t be hemmed in or managed.
Yeah, it’s a particular construction my wife hates with a passion. Perhaps it’s even proper in some circles, I dunno. An example:
Wife: Can you pick the baby up tomorrow after work?
Me: I might can.
ETA: A related expression is “might could”.
That is why ‘irregardless’ (which I will confess to erroneously using until it was pointed out to me that it was not a word…about 20 years ago) does not really set off my radar. Now we use google and tweet as verbs, the latter much different from a bird’s sound. Language is fluid.
But ‘could/should/would/might of’ makes no sense. Using it means one does not understand the words being used.
I’m pretty far down the descriptivist end of the scale so it doesn’t really bother me. So long as I understand you and it doesn’t introduce unnecessary ambiguity I can’t really find the energy to care.
But looking at this ngram showing the increase in irregardless it appears that like so many things we can blame it on the Depression.
And since the Depression was caused by that generation’s 1%, through the transitive property of blame the increase is the fault of the 1%.
The Occupy Wall Street movement now has a clear goal: eliminate corporate influence on politics and get rid of irregardless.
Generally, meaning and language shift occurs within content words. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on. Function words, like prepositions and articles, do not change so readily. “Nice” meant something different a few hundred years ago than it does today, but “the” has stayed the same for a long, long time.
“Could of” is slowly replacing an auxiliary verb with a preposition. That’s like insisting Word is a spreadsheet program. That’s just not what it’s for. It’s not impossible for function words to change, but it is ridiculously unusual and understandably more subject to resistance than the usual type of language drift.
I friggin’ hate disorientated.
I blame Gorilla Monsoon.
That’s because it’s so good, you just have to have another one.
I get annoyed with people who mix up ‘imply’ & ‘infer’. More annoyed than is probably reasonable.
It’s not that bad. I think you’re all overexaggerating.
Me too, and it really flustrates me.
mmm
People saying ‘borrow’ when the mean ‘lend’ makes my skin crawl.