Mini grammar rant

~ Meg

It’s NOT “could OF” it’s “could HAVE.”

Just because we rarely say “could have,” and instead contract it to say “could’ve,” does not change the actual word!

Published by Meg

Easily amused, never bored and constantly distracted. My creative pursuits include writing, drawing, painting and photography.

89 thoughts on “Mini grammar rant”

  3. It’s not that difficult to use proper grammar. I don’t ever correct anyone’s, other than my boys’, but it makes me roll my mind’s eye when I hear or see it done poorly. Living where we do, it’s prevalent….even from some of the teachers we’ve dealt with over the years. 😏

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      1. Not all, but some. We’re doing our part at home to instill this fact in our kids: speaking and writing properly, and using basic manners, will go a long way in creating a positive image of themselves to others. It will make them stand out to teachers, future employers, and girls. Well, the right girls, at least. 😃

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  4. If I had a dollar for every time one of my students wrote “could of” I would be living in the Bahamas and sunbathing on a luxury yacht. We live in an aural / oral world with less formal writing than ever, more texting and tweeting, and copy editors (who specialize in grammar and punctuation) to ensure that the rich and powerful don’t make too many mistakes. Oh yes, and then there are the apologists and spin doctors who help us to understand what was really, really meant, I mean really meant when these mistakes occur.

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    1. You should have kept a jar on your desk, Roger, and made them drop a dollar in for every “could of, would of, should of” 😀
      And yes, where would we be without “really” and “actually” and “in reality” as modifiers?

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  7. I am a language editor by profession.
    See, I live in a country where English is not the spoken language, although it is the language of written communication (try to make sense of that, I dare you). So, I can understand people making grammar mistakes in their work – if they didn’t I’d be without a job. But I have a serious problem with students who are careless or worse couldn’t care less, about their work and they send me a document for editing, filled with texting language – pls, “u” and absolutely no punctuations. A four year old, learning English in our kindergarten (yes, we start kindergarten earlier than you) is taught that a sentence begins with a capital letter. When I see a document without punctuation, I wonder if my job is worth the tension.
    Sorry for ranting.

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    1. When I re-read that comment I wrote, I feel like hitting myself. I am sure the apostrophe after punctuation and before s in the last sentence was an autocorrect, I wouldn’t dare use it there.
      If possible, please correct.

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      1. Dang. Plural for punctuation is punctuation. Dang. I promise not to inundate you any more. Please please correct them in my comment….
        So sorry.

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    2. No apologies! Rant away. 🙂 That’s it exactly. I think we can tell the difference between a genuine mistake and careless work. I know I make plenty of mistakes myself, however, I am also a diligent self-editor! I am mortified if something gets past me or as I mentioned before, the autocorrect makes assumptions for me and I hit send without checking!

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      7. The reader has finally come up for me, and I just refreshed the page and it came up again. Hopefully it will continue to work. Nathalie, I’m glad to read that you had success getting into the reader today. 🙂 Have a terrific rest of the day, with no more crashing!

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      3. Doc, I’m a shotgun. I shoot and if it hits, it hits. I don’t work it because it’s not my thing. I don’t sweat the lines or the mistakes because they are a part of who I am.

        Reading your work and that of my friends is the joy for me.

        You, darling, are the writer in this tango 💃🏻

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  12. AND JUST IN CASE anyone thinks otherwise I have marked my deliberate errors. OOOOOh. It 😩literally makes me mad!!!!!!!!!!! Am I 😩almost unique in this???????? It’s 😩definately different 😩to what it should be and there are 😩less people writing 😩right nowadays. If I’ve made any others, all I can say is Oh 💩!

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  14. You know… this bugs the shit out of me. It’s not hard! The other one that gets me is loose when someone means lose. I guess that one could be autocorrect, but it irritates me anyway. Oh, and if someone can’t ditches you as a friend for correcting them, fuck ’em. (Not literally.) You’re just being helpful… like telling a guy his fly’s down. Just preventing future embarrassment…

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  15. An old boss of mine used to say “why’d you do that for?” Aaaarrrgggghhhh!!
    And some individuals in my husband’s family say “how’s come?” I think it’s a rural-regional thing with them. Drives me nuts!

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      1. Haha, I see your point there. I must say of late, your posts have been pretty phenomenal. Not that they aren’t usually excellent, but recently they have been prolific and put me to shame.

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      2. Truly, it’s only because of being in the midst of the new novel… As a matter of fact, I’ve just caught up to where I am writing in the book, so I’ve officially run out of new excerpts to post. I’m writing today so perhaps by this afternoon or tomorrow, I’ll have something. Otherwise, expect to see a dwindling of material! Plus I have some sketching to do! I’m working on yours of course, and putting the finishing touches on one other.

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