People getting mixed up between "by accident" and "on purpose". Why they get mixed up, I don't know.
this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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It happens - I got "on the ball" and "top of their game" mixed up and told a guy his wife was "on the game".
It happens, you were on the top of your ball, that's what counts.
It definitely felt like I was. Like a performing seal.
And you never see "by purpose".
Why they get mixed up
American "no child kept behind" education?
It's one of those grammatic inaccuracies that has crept into colloquial standards.
It now essentially means the same as by accident, despite the words not matching in meaning.
It’s like spuriously inserting the words ‘of a’ into sentences. That’s becoming a big of a problem too.
I should of realized that.
I need to spend some time off of the internet too.
colloquial standards.
.. which are, naturally, 'standards' with free judgement on the person saying it.
Oh, don't worry: you don't need to select the added judgement. It just is there.
Along with "forgot it at home"
I don't think I see it all that much, or I just don't clock it. One I do see constantly is "should of".
This one enrages me. It's so specifically ignorant you have to do it on purpose.
The people that do this absolutely know that "should'f" isn't a word, and they don't flinch when reading the word "should've". How can they possibly think "of" makes any sense?
They're going out of their way to make English harder to teach and learn when they goof it that hard, and you just really have to be so stupid to do it in the first place.
I'm all for subtle language evolutions, but doing things wrong on purpose isn't the way. But if anybody calls them out they do the equivalent of "nerd!" and ignore the correction.
subtle language evolutions
It's none of those things when it's being driven by popularity, and is thus a product of vapid influencers who probably never learned English let alone are qualified to guide its evolution.
evolutions
That's like 'traffics'.
That was in the sense of different aspects of it evolving, but collectively sure you can cut the s.
They are doing it on accident
Their not doing it by purpose?!
Let's make "negligently" a thing instead.
I think it's an American thing. I see and hear "whenever" used by them a lot when they mean "when", too - it's just one of those differences I guess!
I mean they're pretty interchangeable.
"I'll get to it when I can"
"I'll get to it whenever I can"
Granted there are times they're not interchangeable.
"When do you want this done?" "Whenever"
"When do you want this done?" "When"
But in general they can be swapped and the same information is conveyed.
Those uses are pretty interchangeable, but that's not what I meant -- I meant things like "when I was a child" vs "whenever I was a child", or "when I was sick" vs "whenever I was sick" (talking about one specific instance of being ill).
Yeah but through context you can figure out what the original intent was. Imo that's the main beauty of the English language. You can figure out three meaning purely through context most of the time.
Sure but I'm not saying it's completely impossible to understand. We're just talking about unusual language usage.
Fair enough
I used to push "on accident" all the time in the 90s and 00s but forgot about it. Thanks for the reminder, I will continue in my quest to make it the predominant form. Makes total sense, on purpose/on accident.
Just to stick it to you, I'm going to push people to start saying "by purpose". Bwahahaha!
Pretend we're laughing with you.
Instead of, "careless stupidity."