I am by no means a grammar expert and I can't spell either, but one of my recent gripes is the use of "of" instead of "have." For example, " I must not of remembered.... " rather than ... "have remembered."

Anyone else?

It's OK, you've spelled either correctly but it depends if you mean "eye-ther" or "eee-ther"?

Anyone else what? Have a gripe about it, or do it all the time and wind others up?

Do you have, like, kids? If they're into, like, football they all adopt, like, "football-speak" where the use of "of" sounds like "ov" and "other" becomes, like, "uvver" etc etc

And in case you missed it, it's like, every 5th or 6th word is "like"

Like, yeah, right. Whatever.

I was like, ... Duh. And she was like, oh my gawwd. And he said chill out. And I said I'm wel jel innit.

Incorrect use of apostrophes. I don't mind missing apostrophes, it's the superfluous ones that annoy me.

I know's what you means'.

Using the word "brought" instead of "bought" seems quite popular at the moment.

Waiting for Barnacle to come along

I've mainly given up being bothered by grammar issues, even though I like *trying* to use it correctly (or at least how I was taught...).

Having said that, I still feel as though a puppy has died every time my step-kids say "gotten" (I'm aware that it may, regrettably, be correct), or seem entirely unaware of the difference between "good" and "well".

Stepson Major has entirely dispensed with "to" when expressing his destination: "I'm going Tescos"

Ah well, I daresay they will - in turn - lament the youth of tomorrow when they get to our age.

I do have a gripe that really grates on my nerves when I hear it.
Standing in a queue at a counter, and a seemingly well-educated youth asks in a clear loud voice "Can i get a coffee?".
GET?, GET?, the word is HAVE. Can I have a coffee. What, is he going to physically go and get it himself. The sales assistant will get it for him.
It's "can I have..." or "I would like...". Am I wrong?
I believe it's an americanism, but it seems to affect university educated youth, probably from too much binge watching.
My moan over.

But it could that said "yoof" doesn't know whether coffee is available from that particular retail outlet and is enquiring first, so as not to make a fool of him/herself by saying "Please may (not "can") I have a coffee" when none is available, or it is indeed a "help yourself" Costa-on-the-go type outlet?

Oh, if I must... had a girl on the seat in front of me in a plane recently, the other two seats didn't turn up, so she peered through at her friend sat next to me and announced "I've just like literally taken a photo!".

I blame the illiterati.

Of which: the following quotation is grammatically correct...

Then there is the other Americanism.... To "take."

I blame the notion of manifest destiny.

I'll "take" a bath
I'll "take a big Mac"
I'll take your country because god said it was mine.


Rant over.

Ps admittedly these notions were borne out of European colonialism long before the Yanks got hold of them.

All apart from green's

All of them assuming the greengrocer's name is Green and they are all his vegetables.

Can I get a coffee?

The use of "spell check" which does not correct using the incorrect word, eg "effect" and "affect".

The lack of commas. Their use (or lack of) can totally change the meaning of a sentence.

I do agree to a point on everything discussed in this thread. I'm certainly no expert myself when it comes to spelling & grammar. I would rather see/read to the best of anyone's ability when it comes to all things grammar wise or correct spelling to the best of those putting their point/information forward.( I'm having wee dram or two).....

I made a big mistake some years ago on mentioning a very bad speller on here, so bad, you would honestly think you were reading a very young lazy individual who just did not give a ckuf. I paid for my remarks in various facetious comments for some time afterwards.

If I'm honest, these days raspy accents along with very deliberate varying tones of the voice does my head in, usually by young female & American individual, but not always. Then again that's a different story.

Grammar. The difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit.

Me too, although people not knowing the basics, such as their, there and they're, bought and brought, of and off etc., still annoy me a bit.

I usually say 'I'm going for a bath' or 'I'm going to have a bath', but my daughter has pulled me up for saying 'I'll take a walk down to Lidl', instead of 'I'll have a walk down to Lidl', when 'take' seems to sound more correct, if you know what I mean, especially as 'I'll take the dogs for a walk'

Toby - you know me better than that! Pete is of course correct; Green is the name of the grocer and Green's is the name of his shop.

I know I've bashed on about this before, but: grammar is *not* prescriptive; it's descriptive. If more and more people use 'of' instead of 'have', then the grammar will describe 'of' as an alternative.

Nonetheless, punctuation and standardised spelling have so many advantages, particularly for a language with so little redundancy as English. You may understand what is meant by a sentence littered by grammatical, spelling, and incorrect word errors - but when that sentence is spelt correctly, grammatical, and uses the correct words then it becomes much closer to unambiguous. It's easier to read and easier to understand. Which is to be desired, surely?

'Like' sprinkled through a spoken sentence is, I think, the same as 'you know' or 'um' - it's a verbal tic while people think about the rest of the sentence. It's annoying to be sure, but we can't all be Oscar Wilde when we speak, and it's ignorable.

Neil, I don't think I can agree that if enough people persist in using 'of' instead of 'have' it becomes a legitimate option.

'I should of been more careful' is simply wrong. 'Have' is the appropriate tense indicator, and 'of' is just the wrong reading of 've.

Brian, 'of' is wrong *now*, but if enough people use it, it will become the normative form, and grammatically correct, while 'have' will become as quaint as, say, 'yclept'. I won't like it either.

But recall, 'thee' and 'thou' have been subsumed into 'you' (except in my home dialect, and it's dying there). Most other European languages have formal and familiar 'you' forms, and for centuries, so did English, but no more... things change.

(As an aside, I wonder if the falling out of favour of the thorn character, and the use of the same symbol for 'y', has anything to do with it?)

You an me bro hey!

Not necessarily in line with the thread, but another view point...

Having been working abroad for 6 years. I deal with people who are non-english speakers everyday.

You can imagine the pronunciation, the spelling and the rigmarole of communication. Personally, I don't give a hoot about how things are said or spelt.

All that matters is that all parties understand each other. I can use common sense to interpret what they mean; as they, I am sure, must do with me.

It's a raw kind of english that always ends up doing what it needs to do. Communicating.

My Azeri is terrible and I am sure they all have some fun with how I talk and spell. This led to a revelation for me. I now understand that I do not care if something is 'correct' so long as I understand. In the big scheme of things....

The only thing I really dislike is that this is now affecting how I do things. I get lazy and forgetful. It was only the other day I spelt Overhall when I was meaning Overhaul.

An article in my local newspaper today highlights the lack of numeracy and literacy skills of Australian workers and the problems it causes in the workplace.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/cant-...4ae0588277b0681

My emphasis... perhaps the Courier Mail should be reviewing its editors and/or reporters.