Why YSK?
The first person who typed “should of” probably heard of it in real life that was meant to be “should’ve”, they typed “should of” online and readers thought that it’s grammatically correct to say “should of” which is in fact wrong and it became widespread throughout the years on Reddit.
I hope something could start to change.
I had a professor who would use “should of” in speech, probably because he read it so much and internalized it as being correct.
“Should’ve” and “should of” are pronounced the same, what are you talking about? There’s no way you can mix them up in speech. Are you even a native English speaker?
People who say “should of” makes me want to loose my mind
Right on queue.
right on que!
Also, pleeeaaase, someone find me that ancient image macro of a boy, maybe he had a moustache, or maybe it was drawn on, he was raising an eyebrow, and the only caption on it was “que?”. I’ve been searching for that forever.
Was it the character Manuel from the TV show Fawlty Towers, played by the late Andrew Sachs? There are plenty of images of him saying “Que?”
Haha, that’s a really good replacement until I find the one I am looking for. The image I’m thinking of really showed a boy, not a grown man.
“Should of” is bone apple tea material.
Mayb you’r should’ve have of 👉 accepted the change of language 🌏 ඞ.
I should of known.
Not wanting to be purposefully controversial, but language is a tool for communication and as long as it’s understood by the target audience, then I’d say it was used effectively.
The English language doesn’t have a governing body (unlike say French and Spanish) and so whatever we agree on is correct usage. “Grammatically incorrect” has long been a dog-whistle signifier for elitism (you don’t have the expensive education to know what’s correct) and racism (the local dialect that you speak isn’t our ‘prestige’ version, therefore you are inferior) and I don’t really like to see it. Even when those aren’t your intentions when correcting people, it still rankles with me.
Not that I’d write ‘should of’ on my CV or anything, but it doesn’t offend me any on an internet forum.
and as long as it’s understood by the target audience
Duy’ou-ndarstend Diz?
Understanding written text is more difficult when the existing established conventions that impart meaning are ignored.
Sure, those conventions evolve over time, some errors are worse than others, and no one’s going to write perfectly all the time. But that doesn’t mean anything goes and the writer has no responsibility to write clearly and correctly.
Thanks for the info about French and Spanish governing bodies. TIL
What I’m hearing is we need to set up some kind of formal governing body to properly enforce the grammar rules of English. Maybe Hugo boss could make some uniforms.
It doesn’t necessarily have to invoke that kind of imagery. Spanish has the Royal Spanish Academy and within my lifetime they have removed a couple of letters from the alphabet (ch, ll).
Ah I was just being glib to try and be humorous. Alas my “sense of humour” rarely gets the response looked for. I will keep working on it.
I slightly changed my breathing pattern after reading your comment, if that helps. Not full nose-blow-funny, but you caused a small, positive reaction. Keep it up!
Wait, my 6th grade English teacher was a racist? That explains a lot.
Ha, “rankles”. (✿☉｡☉)
You should halve your outrage at poor grammar usage.
I reflected on the the whole thing after hearing opinions from both sides of users. I now realise I don’t care as much anymore which may be a good thing.
Nice one. Who’d’ve guessed.
I wouldn’t’ve, that’s for sure!
As a non-native speaker, that hurts !!!
😱 You are triggering my fear of more than 1 apostrophes in a word
I’m certainly no grammar freak and English also isn’t my native language but this deives me insane… Same with your vs you’re… it’s soooo easy…
Yeah once you understand the concept it’s not too crazy. But it is still crazy.
Golly, I should of known that
I’m not a grammar nazi, but “should of” is driving me up the wall.
But more importantly, where do you stand on the Oxford comma?
It’s mandatory in a series, only. Something is only a series of there are three. Plenty of time the cadence and diction sounds like a series but isn’t.
If the first two or last two are antecedent to one another, you don’t need the comma. Said another way, if the first or last noun is not severed from the second, you need a serial command to indicate that.
It depends on what you’re trying to say.
Oh, Dude! I’m 99% for it. On the night before my uncle’s funeral, while labeling photos for the slideshow, two of my cousins got into an Oxford comma fight. John, Joe, and Jeff. Take out the second comma. But it’s right! But it looks stupid! Fight! Fight! Fight!
I know right, I know people make careless grammatical mistakes all the time, including me, which is completely fine but people outright thought that “should of” is correct and use it all the time starts to get annoying
Even as a non native speaker “should of” feels really weird to me, it just doesn’t make sense. Is this a mistake English speakers do as well?
