Misuse of Words vs. Language Moving On

I tend to see it more with kids and people whose first language isn't English, so I'd tend to excuse that. I can't recall ever having seen "would of" from anyone who seemed to be fluent in English and at an advanced age.

Wow, nobody makes stupid mistakes when they're typing fast? I mean Hell I've typed "awful" as "offal." Homophones are a bitch.

I've learned most of my english by reading fiction, and internet forums, so I'm actually more fluent in spellings than in pronunciations. For example, I just discovered it a few weeks ago that "sweet" and "sweat" are not homophones.

Stuff like this is probably why all my Spanish teachers suggested watching Spanish language TV. Helps you get more of the subtleties of it that just reading text can't.

Also doesn't help that "tear" can be two entirely different words that are spelled the same way. And that it's not the only one.

Oh, and here's a brain twister. The following sentence can mean seven different things depending on the word you choose to emphasize.

"I never said she stole my money."

edited 24th Oct '12 2:01:04 PM by AceofSpades

I'm the opposite, I've only experienced 'would of' from people who speak English as a first language (I'm guessing it's because use the language all the time without thinking about it). The second language speakers have learned to speak properly and are generally quite conscious about being clear in what they say.

Let's see.

• "I never said she stole my money." Somebody may have said it, but it wasn't me.
• "I never said she stole my money." I'm not saying it now, and I didn't say it in the past.
• "I never said she stole my money." I may have implied it, or indicated that I thought she did some other way, but I didn't actually say it.
• "I never said she stole my money." I said someone stole my money, but I didn't accuse her.
• "I never said she stole my money." I didn't accuse her of outright theft, but I said or implied that she somehow got my money.
• "I never said she stole my money." I said she stole someone else's money.
• "I never said she stole my money." I may have accused her of stealing something, but it wasn't money.

edited 24th Oct '12 8:49:42 PM by Madrugada

It's easier for native speakers to confuse "would of" and "would've" because they're identical phonetically and they did not learn the language learning how to spell at the same time. If you learn words partially by reading them it's more difficult to get homophones that aren't spelled the same mixed up.

edited 24th Oct '12 9:20:48 PM by ohsointocats

That can actually be a problem. Back in Hong Kong people learn English as if they are like learning maths: ask Hong Kong students to introduce themselves in English they will ALWAYS go through their name, age, sex, their parents name, etc. They memorize grammatical rules (to the point that 'If <past tense>' is always followed by 'would have + <verb>' and it always for an impossible condition like "if I were you". NO EXCEPTIONS, not even when writing about an uneducated person that has no knowledge of grammar. Also, the expression "What a <something that you think is incredible" is somehow wrong.) and passages, which makes their compositions very interesting (they talk about silhouettes under the moonlight in an official complain letter/job cover letter/etc done for exams). They are so concerned with rules and grammar that it feels like talking to an AI.

edited 24th Oct '12 9:47:32 PM by IraTheSquire

Agreed on the cause, disagreed that they're phonetically identical.

Yeah, they end up being grammatically correct, but contextually incorrect. Which is pretty entertaining. Though as you say, if you asked them to introduce themselves, they wouldn't be contextually incorrect, just... oversharing or something. Introducing yourself is not the same as being asked "Who are you?" or "What is your name?". When I was learning Mandarin, we always introduced ourselves with name, gender, age, country of birth, etc.

Alternatively, all of those things at once.

I've never even heard of that word. To Wikipedia!

Some offal is delicious, though!

But I've never experienced the awful/offal ridiculousness.

Are "awful" and "offal" homophones in your accent? They sound completely different to me.

Some offal is not awful, but awful offal is offal/ awful.

Many homophones are dialect-dependent, remember. Awful/offal only works in some; would've/would of is also dialect dependent.