Why oh why is the general population suddenly using the word “an” incorrectly?
I want to join an guild.
Do you know anyone who needs an tank?
I’ve got an spare flask if anyone wants it?
IT’S A!!! I want to join A guild, A tank, A spare flask.
I am 34 years old and I live in the U.K., always have. I’m not being nasty or anything I just want to know WHY people seem to use “an” instead of “a” so often. Is it because people from other countries in Europe are getting involved in the game and their English isn’t great? Fine by me. Is it because people are just lazy and can’t spell? Fine by me. I’m not bothered I just want to know!!!
Genuinely not being nasty here, I just want to know the reason why. Thoughts?
Curiously, from multiple sources back and forth, I see native English speakers make a lot of grade school level errors whereas people who learn it as their second language seem to pay more attention to their spelling and grammar. A lot of phonetic spelling seems to slip in, too.
My working hypothesis is that everyday speech (dialects) colours what’s written and that second language learners must pay attention to a different extent than native speakers who are assumed to know just so.
My personal tumour is people phonetically mistaking “would have” for “would of”.
That’s bad, but the one that really gets me is “I could care less.” Seems to mostly be an American thing, though.
But yeah, English and American people seem to have a worse grasp of English than non-native speakers who study it to the point of fluency. And while every language has that to some extent, it seems to be worse in those two countries. In Ireland, where English is unfortunately the first language of the vast majority of the population, people tend not to make as many of the same mistakes as English people or Americans.
Not sure what it’s like in Wales, Scotland or the north of Ireland.
But replacing “would have” with “would of” just makes no sense.
It’s not a spelling error.
It’s not getting the grammar wrong.
Somehow it’s not understanding the difference between “of” and “would”.
And the thing is, the people who do it, in general, have a good understanding of the english language. A fairly broad vocabulary. Still “of” and “would”. Can’t seem to get those two right.
I want to point out that I’m not having a go at those doing it. There’s generally a reason when something is being done again and again.
I would mix those up too tbf. I’m bad at my own language Probably doesn’t help that I’m from one of those badly speaking towns so I learn bad speaking and english anyway!
I used to be guilty of the have/of mix up, as Loras can attest. It mostly stems from colloquial language. When i speak/say it it sounds like “wood’uv”. So naturally i got into the habit of typing of.
So, is it perhaps about the words when spoken sounding similar? Because that is a mistake I can understand. And the repeating pattern would make sense.
Not a native speaker myself, so I don’t really have that much experience with regional accents.
I have to say it. Whom. Whom is really simple to use, but you almost never see it used correctly in RP. Whom is a placeholder for the object of the sentence, not the subject! ‘To whom it may concern’, it being subject, concern being verb, whom being object!
-ahem, but it is mainly 'cause a lot of RPers aren’t native speakers of English.
Agree. But in my experience, I’ve also noticed that players who speak English as a second language are more prone to thesaurus abuse. Usually it’s because (I suspect) they find cool alternative word choices, but don’t actually have the practical experience with the language to know if it fits into the sentence or not.
For some reason, it’s nearly always the Scandinavians. Yeah, I said it.
That said, the worst purple prose I’ve ever seen was from someone who was living in the UK (or so he claimed at least). Doesn’t necessarily mean it was his native language, though, I guess.
Probably doesn’t help that I’m from one of those badly speaking towns so I learn bad speaking and english anyway!
