Why do people say "would of"?

[core_dump]

@DMark

If you have no problem lending the pen, the correct answer would be “No”

And as your misunderstanding/backwards colleague storms out of the room pissy because he thinks he can’t have your pen, you can at least take pride in the fact that you were correct.

[Larry_Mudd]

@Greg_Charles

English is a time stressed language. Words that are less important to the meaning of a sentence, like auxilliary verbs, are sped up, unstressed, and even slurred.

Over time, the practical contractions can get completely abstracted from the words they stand in for.

If you unpacked “goodbye” and took the time to reply “And also with you,” you’d most likely be met with incomprehension. Heck, even “goodbye” feels like the long form in most situations, we’d usually just say “'bye,” which is a long way from “God be with you.”

[greenslime1951]

@MoonMoon

My theory is that bad spellers don’t usually tend to be readers. (I said usually, there are other reasons, I know.) Readers see the words constantly. Non-readers are just hearing the words so interpret them as they hear with creative spelling, e.g. ‘would of’ and ‘rediculous.’

This. People generally don’t read any more–certainly, very few people read for pleasure these days. You wouldn’t say “would of” if you had read the phrase as properly written in the recent past.

Similarly, people who say “anyways” when they mean “anyway” do so because their experience of the word isn’t from reading it, but hearing it, and they construct a false equivalence with other similar-sounding phrases like “two ways to look at it.”

[Mijin]

@DMark

When I used to teach English as a Second Language in Europe, I used to have to teach a lot of incorrect usage that is common to native speakers.

“I gotta go 'cause I wanna see a film and it’s gonna start in 10 minutes.”

A lot of languages run together and contract common words in informal (and formal) usage. I’m not sure I’d necessarily consider it incorrect.

Same goes for the typical wrong answer people give to the question:
“Do you mind if I borrow your pen?”
“Sure.”

If you have no problem lending the pen, the correct answer would be “No” meaning in the negative, “No, I don’t mind.”
However, most people answer in the positive, even though they mean the negative.

It’s interesting. It irks me too, yet I will sometimes give the technically wrong response.

For example, say I’m at a table with friends and a person wants to take our spare chair. The request and response are largely non-verbal. Of course they’ll get my attention politely e.g. “Excuse me”. But then they’ll just gesture towards the chair and ask the question in a token way (“May I…?” or “Are you using this chair?”). And they’re looking for a positive gesture e.g. a nod, with the token verbal answer less important.

So if someone says “Do you mind if…?”, what do I do? Give a negative response but also nod?

[Mijin]

double post

[EddyTeddyFreddy]

@Mijin

For example, say I’m at a table with friends and a person wants to take our spare chair. The request and response are largely non-verbal. Of course they’ll get my attention politely e.g. “Excuse me”. But then they’ll just gesture towards the chair and ask the question in a token way (“May I…?” or “Are you using this chair?”). And they’re looking for a positive gesture e.g. a nod, with the token verbal answer less important.

So if someone says “Do you mind if…?”, what do I do? Give a negative response but also nod?

Nah, you say “No prob” and it’s all good.

[JKellyMap]

@DMark

When I used to teach English as a Second Language in Europe, I used to have to teach a lot of incorrect usage that is common to native speakers.

“I gotta go 'cause I wanna see a film and it’s gonna start in 10 minutes.”

…

Yes, all crappy English, but if you want your students to understand when people speak quickly, you have to teach them that too. I did stress they should never write that way.
…

Good for you! You were a better ESL teacher than most. But, again, it is NOT “crappy” English. It is just English, the way everyone speaks it.

(Not everyone speaks it exactly the same way, and some of us try to sound out unstressed phonemes (as if they were stressed) more than others do, but if you try doing this a LOT more than average, you will sound very strange indeed. You could even say that that would be “crappy” English pronunciation.)