As a non native English speaker, that is the grammar mistake that most baffles me in natives. Like, how does anybody think that “of” is the right word there, how does it make sense in their heads.
True 🦴🍎☕️ material, if it weren’t that absurdly common.
I think the mistake might come from a lack of reading. The contraction “should’ve” is often used in speech, which might be mistakenly written as “should of” if you don’t read a lot and see it written properly all the time. We’ve mostly lost the voiced quality of “v” at the ends of words like that, so it’s basically pronounced “should-uf” in American English.
i just learned yesterday that apparently america teaches kids to read not by, you know, having them read things, but by memorizing made-up rules to… guess at how words are pronounced and what they mean…
this uh, explains a lot about why america is why it is, i feel.
I mean, it’s rather obvious it’s just written down as it’s spoken - like “bone apple tea”. But while it’s relatable that someone who doesn’t know any French cannot write “bon appétit”, I don’t get how a native speaker could write “should of” and thinking yeah that makes complete sense.
It’s also not an auto-correct problem like “there, they’re, their” may have originated (I hope it did).
When spoken should’ve can sound a lot like should of or shoulda depending on the dialect. Most native speakers don’t really think about gammer rules when writing informally, they just write how they speak.
shoulda makes vastly more sense, and is precisely the kind of thing that tends to become slang and eventually just the standard spelling, like “dunno” or “gotcha”.
“should of” just feels like people know it should be two words, but don’t know how it’s spelled, and instead of just spelling it phonetically they make something half-phonetic up.
As a non native English speaker, that is the grammar mistake that most baffles me in natives. Like, how does anybody think that “of” is the right word there, how does it make sense in their heads.
True 🦴🍎☕️ material, if it weren’t that absurdly common.
It’s like when they mess up they’re, their and there. It doesn’t make any sense until you read it out loud
I think the mistake might come from a lack of reading. The contraction “should’ve” is often used in speech, which might be mistakenly written as “should of” if you don’t read a lot and see it written properly all the time. We’ve mostly lost the voiced quality of “v” at the ends of words like that, so it’s basically pronounced “should-uf” in American English.
i just learned yesterday that apparently america teaches kids to read not by, you know, having them read things, but by memorizing made-up rules to… guess at how words are pronounced and what they mean…
this uh, explains a lot about why america is why it is, i feel.
I mean, it’s rather obvious it’s just written down as it’s spoken - like “bone apple tea”. But while it’s relatable that someone who doesn’t know any French cannot write “bon appétit”, I don’t get how a native speaker could write “should of” and thinking yeah that makes complete sense.
It’s also not an auto-correct problem like “there, they’re, their” may have originated (I hope it did).
I understand to some extent, thanks!
When spoken should’ve can sound a lot like should of or shoulda depending on the dialect. Most native speakers don’t really think about gammer rules when writing informally, they just write how they speak.
shoulda makes vastly more sense, and is precisely the kind of thing that tends to become slang and eventually just the standard spelling, like “dunno” or “gotcha”.
“should of” just feels like people know it should be two words, but don’t know how it’s spelled, and instead of just spelling it phonetically they make something half-phonetic up.
I think it comes from people shortening it to should’ve which then got warped into should of