English Language

[bobbie22]

Why do people say 'I should of.' I could of,' I would of.' instead of 'I should have' etc. Why do people say 'I am loving this.' instead of 'I love this' Do abers think this is important?

[Canary42]

It's called progress :(

I am abhoring it !

[jackthehat]

I'm like "whatever"......

[Buenchico]

'Of' rather than 'have' probably occurs simply because people learn by imitation. If their parents and their peers say 'of' (and they only rarely encounter the printed word), it's unsurprising when they follow suit.

I've got great objection to the use of 'I am loving this'. To me it suggests transitory enjoyment rather than a lifelong association. For example, someone might try a massage and declare "I'm loving this". That declaration would tell me how much they were enjoying the (possibly one-off) experience, whereas "I love this" might suggest that that it was something which they did regularly.

[ichkeria]

"I'm loving this" is an expression that I utterly abhor.
Maybe that says more about me, but I don't care :-)

[douglas9401]

Possibly cos there piers are as thick as two short bricks so they all think its pucker.

[yogi-bear]

Lawd above! Hey bobbie,

Know what yew mean but i talk ok yew see so no problem ter me ears... got what i'm saying?, innit.

Not impawtan' ter me as i speak da Queen's english right?.......everyone understands da bear ok?, innit.

[Arksided]

wasn't it beyonce that sang, 'should-a, Could-a are the words of a fool' if it were her she knew what she meant.

[kinkajou2]

My guess is more and more people adopt a kind of English,as served up
in soap operas - reading anything more stimulating than glossy magazines
seems to be in decline - to correct someone,might be risking a torrent
of abuse,rounded off by the emphatic "That"s how I talk,innit! End of!!"

[Chinajan]

It's because this is what it sounds like, together with the fact that children aren't taught .

If you say, 'I would've liked that' out loud, you can 'hear' that it sounds like 'would of', although as we know, it's short for 'would have'.

It's this, along with the lack of adequate education in this discipline. To use douglas9401's response as an example [forgive me!], he uses the shortened version of because, 'cos', he spells 'their' as 'there', he mixes up the sayings, 'As thick as a brick' with 'As thick as two short planks', and he misspells 'peers' and 'puckah'.

I rest my case. :D

[moiflan]

On a restaurant menu it said"Chicken sat on a bed of spinach" it really annoyed me to a inordinate degree.I teach English sometimes and kids always say for example"was you going out with her?"instead of" were you",they really don't know their tenses!Or they might say"It weren't me Miss"In contrast ,when teaching English abroad I have found the students to understand and speak the Englisl language faultlessly.Just found a poem I wrote for them....
Don't say "I weren't" it's "I wasn't",nor is it "I never" it's "I didn't"
Could it ever be right to say "Wasn't you?" when it's "weren't you?"
Don't be nerds
Know your verbs
Don't be crass
Show you're class!

[Chinajan]

Hmm, the site missed out some of my previous answer.

After 'children aren't taught', I had written 'sufficiently well in this discipline.'

I hope that makes more sense. It's rather ironic that it should happen in a thread of this nature!

[TheWinner]

I heard two people talking.
One said: How much were it?
Reply: Two pound Fert-i.

[ChuckFickens]

"It's rather ironic that it should happen in a thread of this nature!"

Almost as ironic as a poster who" uses the shortened version of because, 'cos', he spells 'their' as 'there', he mixes up the sayings, 'As thick as a brick' with 'As thick as two short planks', and he misspells 'peers' and 'puckah'."

[douglas9401]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Chinajan you seem very earnest and worthy but lacking a funny bone. It was meant to be humerus. :(

[Chinajan]

I'll take your word for it douglas!

Oh - and 'humerous'. :D

[douglas9401]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humerus
Oh and, humourous. :o)

[tara20]

or even humorous

[douglas9401]

Tush! Eh?

[Buenchico]

Oops! Typo above!!
I should have written "I've got NO great objection . . . "

(Why is it always on questions about the use of language that my typing goes wrong?)

Perhaps I should write "My bad" at this point?
(I REALLY hate that expression!)

[sherrardk]

I'm with you on 'my bad' - I have seen comments from teachers that say 'you should of ...' that really irritates me.