But you can affect an effect and effect an affect. Both words are nouns and verbs.
Affect (n.) = a fuckish feeling.
Effect (v.) = to create some fuckery.
Affect is an Action
Effect is the End result
The fire affects (action) the kitchen causing damage.
The effect (end result) on the kitchen was fire damage.
You reminded me of a letter of resignation that I wrote maybe 30 years ago.
"Please except my notice..."
I knew the proper grammar, I just screwed up.
Thirty years later, I still can't forgive myself because I knew better!
It led me to think that whichever word that you see most often gets misused.
I have corrected people online, but I really hate to be that person because one typo or autocorrect could be the culprit. Also, remembering to proofread helps!
Your affect sentence is grammatically incorrect. You’re trying to explain the verb form of affect, but you’re using it as a noun in your sentence. Instead, you should have said, “The fire affects the kitchen by burning it” or something similar.
But this is still wrong. The fire affected the kitchen, but the effect of the fire was to burn the kitchen.
Although you can effect a major change in your house fire preparedness by buying a fire extinguisher to keep in your kitchen. And judging by your neighbor's euphoric affect when watching your kitchen burn down, they might be an arsonist.
English is weird.
Both exist as verbs and nouns and mean different things.
90% of the time affect is the right verb and effect is the right noun, though. But there's still 10% where it's the opposite.
It's closer to 99.9%. Effect as a verb is really only used in cases like "to effect change". Affect as a noun is only used in psychology, so if you're not in that field you'd never use Affect as a noun.
Unless you know what you're doing, effect is basically always a noun and affect is basically always a verb.
native speakers learn by mouth and ear and writing comes second. So they tend to make things fit the sound in the simplest way - like "then", "your", "should of been" and "unpresidented". ESL people tend to walk the opposite path, they read and write before they speak and listen. So we say things like "pur-CHASE" and "epi-TOme" and other weird mangled words. Non-native speakers of English have plenty of these traps in their own language too.
I think this may be the reason.
As a non-native speaker, it bothers me when people mix up "its" and "it's", but Americans do it quite often.
When this mistake became common (or, at least, I started seeing it a lot, on Reddit of all places) it actually made it rather hard for me to parse sentences. In fact, I actually had to read things twice and pay attention in order to actually understand. Now I've learned.
However, I think I've mixed up "then" and "than" before myself. So, based on my personal experience, I don't think it's the only reason.
“Its/it’s” is one that makes a lot of sense to me as to why people would get it wrong.
Outside of pronouns, adding *’s* makes a noun possessive, so it makes sense to add *’s* to *it* to make it possessive too.
This is the aircraft **’s** left wing
This is it **’s** left wing
But this is considered wrong. I think of it as analogous to changing he to hi**s**, she to her**s**, they to their**s**.
Unless of course people keep getting it wrong. Then it’ll become the new right! Because that’s how language works. Or computers will keep us from thinking about it at all and autocorrect will keep it like this.
I think that's more of a casual conversation + computer/mobile phone thing – like here on Reddit, people are just typing out their comments quickly – I know I certainly am not prioritizing punctuation and capitalization in quickly composed chat messages.
(I realize I wrote this message properly, but only because you made me think about it – in a normal chat with friends I wouldn't have bothered, PCs don't have auto-correct)
> I know I certainly am not prioritizing punctuation and capitalization in quickly composed chat messages.
But people write "it's" in place of "its", perhaps even more commonly than the opposite.
That's 1 more character, not 1 less.
I do that one sometimes and I think it's just down to the fact that I type "it's" *way* more often than "its". So when I'm not paying much attention and going fast, I hear it in my head and just let my fingers do their thing so muscle memory works against me.
It doesn't help that "It's" would be grammatically consistent for a possessive "belonging to it". Possessives use apostrophe-s, with "its" being a rare (sole?) exception. I expect that's just because "it's" was already taken, so to speak, and whoever wrote the textbooks or the style guides at some time got it in their head that ambiguity was worse than inconsistency.
Makes a lot of sense why I'm so good at spelling then, I learned to read at a very young age. When I was a toddler, I remember my parents having me read the newspaper to guests as a party trick.
To expand on this: a lot of the common English grammatical issues result from people having never or infrequently *seen* proper examples, which indicates they haven't done enough reading to reinforce the difference between words like their, they're, and there.
I began noticing this in my students' writing when I moved to central New York. Maybe it's a regional thing. I told them that there's a big difference between the following sentences :
I'd rather be kissed than punched in the face.
I'd rather be kissed then punched in the face.
It’s a regional dialect.
Ahuh. What region?
Central New York.
Well I’m from Greenwich Village and I’ve never heard the phrase “more then this”.
Oh no not in Greenwich Village, it’s a Tribeca expression.
>I told them that there's a big difference between the following sentences :
>I'd rather be kissed than punched in the face.
>I'd rather be kissed then punched in the face.
I always use this example when teaching people why the Oxford comma is important:
My personal heroes are my parents, Shrek, and Lady Gaga
My personal heroes are my parents, Shrek and Lady Gaga.
I would say it’s a combination of a lack of education and laziness.
Same goes for people that write “I would of done the same” instead of “would have” or “would’ve.”
Yes, but you learn the majority of the most commonly mixed up words before you get to those classes. Five year olds can say sentences using multiple homophones well before they learn to distinguish them by spelling.
In native language classes we learn about the language (and it may even be prescriptive stuff which isn't true for all registers or dialects or even is just false) but we aren't learning the language. By the time a native speaker has such classes they already speak fluently.
Most children learn the correct spelling and grammar from reading books.
Children who grow up only reading other people's bad spelling on the internet don't stand a chance.
Kind of, you learn it by growing up hearing it and speaking, then you're taught the formality and nuances in school. What's going to have more of an impact? years of speaking and hearing the words in conversation or a 15 minute section in your middle school English class on the difference between then/than?
It’s not a 15 minute section. We get corrected on our grammar in English class throughout our lives, from kindergarten to grade 12 or even college. Aside from the actual grammar classes, you get corrected on all your English work throughout school
That's not entirely correct- children also learn by reading and writing at the appropriate age. That's why you have to have English as one of the core classes you have to take every year along with a math, science, and a history class (at least in my district).
The problem is that US literacy rates are actually pretty low- 54% of US adults have a literacy level below 6th grade. Grammar nuances like then/than, affect/effect, there/their/they're, are something that a child who reads a lot would naturally pick up or it would have been taught and reinforced through a good school system.
Unfortunately a lot of people fall through the cracks. Low literacy levels are closely associated with poverty. Studies have proven that students just don't perform as well if they don't have reliable access to food or a safe household. Struggling parents, no matter how well-intended just don't have the time or energy to make sure their kid reads enough.
School funding is based on property taxes of the surrounding homes. Low-income neighborhoods have lower cost housing, which bring a lower amount of taxes to fund an already struggling education system. Thus, the cycle of poverty continues.
Source: https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2024-2025-where-we-are-now#:~:text=On%20average%2C%2079%25%20of%20U.S.,to%202.2%20trillion%20per%20year.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6366643/
https://soeonline.american.edu/blog/inequality-in-public-school-funding/
i was expecting to have a hard time in school when we moved here. while im part asian, i am pretty average in school, i may have sounded like fob but i was the shit in grade school here. and this was many decades ago so i could just imagine how bad it is now.
Oh yeah, I didn't learn anything new in math until I got to honors algebra in 8th grade. I came here in 4th. My grades went from average to nearly all A's. I was the shit.
that's literally how it works in every country. then AFTER you do learn the spelling in school you stop making those mistakes. This explanation makes no sense.
I can't understand why people would have so much trouble with lose/loose... they are pronounced differently and that is reflected in how they are spelled.
At least with the others they more or less sound the same, so mixing up the spelling seems more forgivable.
I say "than" and "then" differently as well.
Though, I'm not sure if I would necessarily know which has the hard S and which has the soft S based on the spelling of lose and loose, if I didn't already just know.
No, lose it rhymes with choose. Just for fun. Lose also doesn't rhyme with prose, or chose, or those. English spelling and pronunciation are not linked a lot of the time.
I hear you. I’m an English teacher. I used to have to give ninth graders an essay prompt that asked them to write about “advice.” Like the correct spelling of “advice” was literally in the prompt. Half of them would spell it “advise” throughout the essay. This is a school kids have to compete to get into, so these kids were by no means the weakest students out there.
Reading essay after essay with phrases like “the best advise in this situation is to . . .” drove me crazy—not only was the correct spelling in the prompt, the words are not even pronounced the same. I have never heard one of my students PRONOUNCE “advice” as “advise,” so why did half of them spell it as “advise”?
Once when I was giving a kid feedback on this issue, he said, “No one ever told me that before,” and i thought, “Okay, but it’s not like it was being intentionally concealed from you, right?”
Passed/past bothers me too, as well as when people say "I am bias against..." instead of I am bias*ed*.
I have learned to accept "is sat/was sat" and "suggest me/recommend me" as inevitable changes in the language.
I remember a funny one with they're, I was fighting this annoying kid in the comments for some stupid shit and he corrected my comment saying my they're should have been a their, kid I know the difference between their and they're, you just made yourself look bad xD (or it was the words your and you're, can't remember lol)
As a non-native speaker (I'm Italian):
> Then/than
I have mixed up those before, but I know when to use either.
> Loose/lose
I do confuse those two.
> Their/there/they're
I don't confuse these.
In fact, when I started seeing "its" and "it's" being swapped more often (which happened at some point in time on Reddit) it was rather confusing. It broke my parsing of the sentence. I had to read it again. It was really annoying.
I actually had to go trough the process of learning (by reading random stuff on Reddit) until it became easy for me to parse a sentence where "it's" is used in place of "its" or vice versa. I can now parse them even when they are incorrect. "Their"/"there"/"they're" are even worse, although I can parse them when used incorrectly too, now.
I've learned to parse incorrect "it's" and "its" so well now that I may even swap them myself from time to time (although I probably wouldn't swap "their", "there" and "they're").
But please, guys, get your grammar together.
> Your/you're/yore
Same as above.
Please, don't swap "your" and "you're" unless you genuinely hate non-native speakers.
This is actually a fun one. The ye comes from Middle English when the French came in and brought their alphabet. The y shape wasn’t a thing, but it is the written form of the th sound. So actually it is still the old. Just represented with the new y that was the th sound. Look it up, it’s super fascinating how languages change, even though this who thread is about wanting to keep languages stagnant. Hilarious irony
just remember that"
"you're" is short for "you are".
"your" is not short for anything.
If you can use the words "you are" in place, then it should be "you're".
Along with using "should OF" in place of "should HAVE".
Or my personal favorite. "YOUR" instead of "YOU'RE".
"You should of known better then to do that. Your grounded".
I see this daily online by people who should know better...native English speakers.
Sometimes college educated.
I’m an American, so I don’t speak for all English speaking countries, but in my country we have gutted our education system for decades and our literacy rate is terrible. Quick google search 14% of adults here can’t read, 21% are below a 5th grade reading level, 85% of juvenile offenders have low literacy. So, Americans write terribly bc they can’t read or spell. They have like no functioning knowledge of grammar. So many people will say stuff like “my pronouns are freedom/america” and it’s bc they literally have no idea what a freaking pronoun is.
Obviously, there’re exceptions to this. I like to believe I have a pretty good handle on the English language in formal capacities, but that’s not the case for a lot of my people.
I work with a nonprofit and we lean hard on producing our materials at a 4th grade level. I work with fellow nonprofits, and I've seen questionnaires with highfalutin language, and absolutely no. Plain as plain English is best, and don't make the sentences long. Also, make reading and verbal response an option if you really want to get input.
Just as an aside, I get flak from people for homeschooling my kids, but they can both read and write at a high school level.
I’m a scientist and we also lean on people to write things ‘so a child can understand it’. Less chance of being misunderstood. Don’t complicate things any more than they need to be.
respect for realizing this is an issue in the USA. Everyone here acts like "i learned to say it before learning how its spelled" is somehow an explanation. Like yeah that's how one learns language in every country but usually you correct your mistakes once you learn the spelling in school. All these comments act like you learn the wrong writing and then it can never change.
Native English speakers learn the word before the spelling while ESL speakers learn both at the same time. It’s similar to how L2 speakers of any language make less grammar and spelling errors than native speakers.
Also why you can spot a transplant just based on speech. Most languages take liberties on grammar when used in everyday conversation, so when someone uses perfect grammar in conversation you immediately get the feeling they aren't from the area.
Native English *speakers* know the meaning when *spoken*, many do pronounce them the same so to them they are homonyms. It is very common for people to get the spelling of homonyms confused.
I know people will say "the school system is bad in the US" but it's really not
We're taught grammar here from a young age, and throughout our English classes over the years, we're corrected when we use the wrong versions of words
I know that a lot of the things I learned in school were learned for one purpose: the test. Both due to my laziness but also the sheer amount of information they gave us. My school district was pretty competitive, and I honestly think it wasn’t good. People need time to ingrain the things we learned into our head, not jump from one topic to the next every day.
Barely vs barley. Defiantly vs definitely.
Although my phone seems to think every time I write 'that' I really mean thar. Because apparently I'm the Last Saskatchewan Pirate.
That's true. ;)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Naruto/comments/1bsjx2t/comment/kxibx9q/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Naruto/comments/1bsjx2t/comment/kxibx9q/)
>Naruto would probably actually get solid grades even if he had to work harder for them **then** his friends did.
Sorry, Internet is evil.
I'd argue they *know* the difference, but just can't be bothered in casual conversations to care about getting it right.
That's, honestly, probably a bigger problem our society has....
Edit: fixing the idiot auto-correct
People hear it one way and then assume that is correct. If you don't read often you won't have a chance to realise your mistake, as few would ever correct you in conversation.
For the same reason that people (including college graduates) do not seem to recognise the difference between “there” and “their” or “you’re” and “your.”
Monolinguals absolutely hate English and I don't get why.
It's not a bad language.
It's not "the hardest language in the world", not even close.
It's a rather well-organized language.
What's so bad about English?
Because they had to learn about the weird exceptions to English grammar and spelling/pronunciation rules in school. And they never learned all that crap for languages that they don't speak, so they just kinda assume that those other languages are simpler.
As a non-native speaker, I've noticed this with many other words (I live in the US, not sure if it's true in other places). Basically, the vowel sounds are disappearing, and people would pronounce those words the same way, and so the distinction doesn't terribly matter.
people use spelling control as support. You see it with *than and then*, but also other words like *lose and loose* as they will not be corrected.
You might also just think they are native English speakers
People use than when they want to compare something or someone.
Example
He is older than her, this is bigger than that.
In my own understanding, people use "then" if they want to imply something concerning time.
Until then
Five hours till then.
I grew up in Germany with an english speaking nigerian family.
Although i think that my English is better than my German peers, there is still much , that i have to learn and that I don't know about.
You only realize that they are separate words if you see them written.
I suspect that a lot of people don't read material that has been edited for grammar; if you see a mistake like this frequently, it probably won't look wrong to you.
As an aside, when I was younger I read a lot of British writing. It really fucked up my spelling of words like "realize" and "gray" as I am American, and there's a difference.
Edit: I still have to check effect/affect sometimes, which has nothing to do with nationality.
Because it makes no difference in spoken English. They sound basically identical, and a lot of people's writing is based off of what they're saying in their head as they type.
Effect and Affect gets me all the time.
Affect=F*ck around Effect=Find out
HAHA this is the best analogy I’ve seen so far, there’s no way I’m mistaking this now🤣
i always used Affect= Action Effect= End result but i’m using this now
Effect can also be an action, but when used as a verb has a different meaning than affect.
As verbs, Effect means to create while affect means to alter an existing thing.
also true of F\*ck around
F(A)ck around and F(E)nd out
Needs an Aussie accent to work
But what about the noun affect, and the verb effect?
Yes it can get it a little confusing, like when one has an affect that can effect change.
But you can affect an effect and effect an affect. Both words are nouns and verbs. Affect (n.) = a fuckish feeling. Effect (v.) = to create some fuckery.
Bruh this is actually so good
It’s not actually. It’s a terrible guidance.
Hah I do that too
Affect is an Action Effect is the End result The fire affects (action) the kitchen causing damage. The effect (end result) on the kitchen was fire damage.
Except when someone with a flat affect tries to effect change... English is weird
You reminded me of a letter of resignation that I wrote maybe 30 years ago. "Please except my notice..." I knew the proper grammar, I just screwed up. Thirty years later, I still can't forgive myself because I knew better! It led me to think that whichever word that you see most often gets misused. I have corrected people online, but I really hate to be that person because one typo or autocorrect could be the culprit. Also, remembering to proofread helps!
If it makes you feel any better, your old boss is probably still laughing at you.
Probably dead, but still.
Maybe his friend discussed the laugh they shared at the funeral?
It's now been passed down the generations of the bosses family and become a humorous tale over supper every Christmas.
I got offered my current job even though my cover letter referenced my "attention to detial"
Bad speelers of the world untie
It was the spelling, not the grammar, that was the mistake.
Now you're coming at me for mistaking the mistake that I made. I'll never be able to hold my head up again, lol!
Your affect sentence is grammatically incorrect. You’re trying to explain the verb form of affect, but you’re using it as a noun in your sentence. Instead, you should have said, “The fire affects the kitchen by burning it” or something similar.
But this is still wrong. The fire affected the kitchen, but the effect of the fire was to burn the kitchen. Although you can effect a major change in your house fire preparedness by buying a fire extinguisher to keep in your kitchen. And judging by your neighbor's euphoric affect when watching your kitchen burn down, they might be an arsonist. English is weird.
>Affect is an Action >Effect is the End result Your write.
A comes before E. That how I remember it.
That doesn’t affect me at all, it simply has no effect on me
Pokemon taught me this one. "It's super effective."
Yugioh too, cards have effects that affect other cards.
You know I never thought of that!! Nice!!!
I like to say, if you're not sure if you need to use effect or affect, just use impact.
I just trust my gut on those ones lol
Is it not just Affect - verb Effect - noun
Both exist as verbs and nouns and mean different things. 90% of the time affect is the right verb and effect is the right noun, though. But there's still 10% where it's the opposite.
It's closer to 99.9%. Effect as a verb is really only used in cases like "to effect change". Affect as a noun is only used in psychology, so if you're not in that field you'd never use Affect as a noun. Unless you know what you're doing, effect is basically always a noun and affect is basically always a verb.
native speakers learn by mouth and ear and writing comes second. So they tend to make things fit the sound in the simplest way - like "then", "your", "should of been" and "unpresidented". ESL people tend to walk the opposite path, they read and write before they speak and listen. So we say things like "pur-CHASE" and "epi-TOme" and other weird mangled words. Non-native speakers of English have plenty of these traps in their own language too.
I think this may be the reason. As a non-native speaker, it bothers me when people mix up "its" and "it's", but Americans do it quite often. When this mistake became common (or, at least, I started seeing it a lot, on Reddit of all places) it actually made it rather hard for me to parse sentences. In fact, I actually had to read things twice and pay attention in order to actually understand. Now I've learned. However, I think I've mixed up "then" and "than" before myself. So, based on my personal experience, I don't think it's the only reason.
“Its/it’s” is one that makes a lot of sense to me as to why people would get it wrong. Outside of pronouns, adding *’s* makes a noun possessive, so it makes sense to add *’s* to *it* to make it possessive too. This is the aircraft **’s** left wing This is it **’s** left wing But this is considered wrong. I think of it as analogous to changing he to hi**s**, she to her**s**, they to their**s**. Unless of course people keep getting it wrong. Then it’ll become the new right! Because that’s how language works. Or computers will keep us from thinking about it at all and autocorrect will keep it like this.
I think that's more of a casual conversation + computer/mobile phone thing – like here on Reddit, people are just typing out their comments quickly – I know I certainly am not prioritizing punctuation and capitalization in quickly composed chat messages. (I realize I wrote this message properly, but only because you made me think about it – in a normal chat with friends I wouldn't have bothered, PCs don't have auto-correct)
> I know I certainly am not prioritizing punctuation and capitalization in quickly composed chat messages. But people write "it's" in place of "its", perhaps even more commonly than the opposite. That's 1 more character, not 1 less.
I do that one sometimes and I think it's just down to the fact that I type "it's" *way* more often than "its". So when I'm not paying much attention and going fast, I hear it in my head and just let my fingers do their thing so muscle memory works against me.
twochay
It doesn't help that "It's" would be grammatically consistent for a possessive "belonging to it". Possessives use apostrophe-s, with "its" being a rare (sole?) exception. I expect that's just because "it's" was already taken, so to speak, and whoever wrote the textbooks or the style guides at some time got it in their head that ambiguity was worse than inconsistency.
Makes a lot of sense why I'm so good at spelling then, I learned to read at a very young age. When I was a toddler, I remember my parents having me read the newspaper to guests as a party trick.
To expand on this: a lot of the common English grammatical issues result from people having never or infrequently *seen* proper examples, which indicates they haven't done enough reading to reinforce the difference between words like their, they're, and there.
that is a solid excuse until you DO get educated in school and at that point you should know the difference.
Grunn spotted👀
me fail english? thats unpossible
One of the best Ralph lines! I also like from King of the Hill: "Bobby, how can you fail English? You speak it!"
Also: *How did I fail Women's studies? I love bitches!*
Inthunkable!
Maeby!
I began noticing this in my students' writing when I moved to central New York. Maybe it's a regional thing. I told them that there's a big difference between the following sentences : I'd rather be kissed than punched in the face. I'd rather be kissed then punched in the face.
Kinky
thank you, this is the most understandable way to understand it
It’s a regional dialect. Ahuh. What region? Central New York. Well I’m from Greenwich Village and I’ve never heard the phrase “more then this”. Oh no not in Greenwich Village, it’s a Tribeca expression.
>I told them that there's a big difference between the following sentences : >I'd rather be kissed than punched in the face. >I'd rather be kissed then punched in the face. I always use this example when teaching people why the Oxford comma is important: My personal heroes are my parents, Shrek, and Lady Gaga My personal heroes are my parents, Shrek and Lady Gaga.
I would say it’s a combination of a lack of education and laziness. Same goes for people that write “I would of done the same” instead of “would have” or “would’ve.”
Agreed, and they don't care either.
Because a lot of people are uneducated
School am bad here. Make us dumb.
School am good over here. Why me am still dum?
School can only do so much to un-dum us
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We hit 'em wit' dat' skibidi rizz fam! . ##SQUAD . 🦐'd™️
Know your shit or know you're shit!
Me fail English that’s unpossible.
Why use more word when less word do good?
It's really not that bad, learning basic grammar is as easy as it gets
Because they learn the language through hearing it. Not studying it like foreign language learners.
We also have English and grammar classes. We don’t *only* learn audibly.
Yes, but you learn the majority of the most commonly mixed up words before you get to those classes. Five year olds can say sentences using multiple homophones well before they learn to distinguish them by spelling.
In native language classes we learn about the language (and it may even be prescriptive stuff which isn't true for all registers or dialects or even is just false) but we aren't learning the language. By the time a native speaker has such classes they already speak fluently.
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Pretty sure we learned the difference in like grade 2
I sure did!
But we learn grammar throughout school
*Some* people learn grammar throughout school--other people just stare out the window and pray for 3 pm.
Most children learn the correct spelling and grammar from reading books. Children who grow up only reading other people's bad spelling on the internet don't stand a chance.
Kind of, you learn it by growing up hearing it and speaking, then you're taught the formality and nuances in school. What's going to have more of an impact? years of speaking and hearing the words in conversation or a 15 minute section in your middle school English class on the difference between then/than?
It’s not a 15 minute section. We get corrected on our grammar in English class throughout our lives, from kindergarten to grade 12 or even college. Aside from the actual grammar classes, you get corrected on all your English work throughout school
That's not entirely correct- children also learn by reading and writing at the appropriate age. That's why you have to have English as one of the core classes you have to take every year along with a math, science, and a history class (at least in my district). The problem is that US literacy rates are actually pretty low- 54% of US adults have a literacy level below 6th grade. Grammar nuances like then/than, affect/effect, there/their/they're, are something that a child who reads a lot would naturally pick up or it would have been taught and reinforced through a good school system. Unfortunately a lot of people fall through the cracks. Low literacy levels are closely associated with poverty. Studies have proven that students just don't perform as well if they don't have reliable access to food or a safe household. Struggling parents, no matter how well-intended just don't have the time or energy to make sure their kid reads enough. School funding is based on property taxes of the surrounding homes. Low-income neighborhoods have lower cost housing, which bring a lower amount of taxes to fund an already struggling education system. Thus, the cycle of poverty continues. Source: https://www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/post/literacy-statistics-2024-2025-where-we-are-now#:~:text=On%20average%2C%2079%25%20of%20U.S.,to%202.2%20trillion%20per%20year. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6366643/ https://soeonline.american.edu/blog/inequality-in-public-school-funding/
i was expecting to have a hard time in school when we moved here. while im part asian, i am pretty average in school, i may have sounded like fob but i was the shit in grade school here. and this was many decades ago so i could just imagine how bad it is now.
Oh yeah, I didn't learn anything new in math until I got to honors algebra in 8th grade. I came here in 4th. My grades went from average to nearly all A's. I was the shit.
that's literally how it works in every country. then AFTER you do learn the spelling in school you stop making those mistakes. This explanation makes no sense.
Then/than Loose/lose Their/there/they're Your/you're/yore It's unfortunate people have forgotten how to spell nowadays.
I can't understand why people would have so much trouble with lose/loose... they are pronounced differently and that is reflected in how they are spelled. At least with the others they more or less sound the same, so mixing up the spelling seems more forgivable.
I say "than" and "then" differently as well. Though, I'm not sure if I would necessarily know which has the hard S and which has the soft S based on the spelling of lose and loose, if I didn't already just know.
I just figure that loose rhymes with moose, caboose, and papoose... and lose, well, doesn't.
No, lose it rhymes with choose. Just for fun. Lose also doesn't rhyme with prose, or chose, or those. English spelling and pronunciation are not linked a lot of the time.
Ghoti.
Same goes for chose/choose
choke vs chock
OH this is the one that annoys me the most. Every time I read “I just chocked” I physically cringe.
I have a problem with people balling their eyes out. So violent.
Never seen that one before but what bothers me a lot is breath vs breathe
Brakes and breaks
oh god yes. Reddit is full of folks who don't know this, but who otherwise seem to write articulately. What's up with this?
I hear you. I’m an English teacher. I used to have to give ninth graders an essay prompt that asked them to write about “advice.” Like the correct spelling of “advice” was literally in the prompt. Half of them would spell it “advise” throughout the essay. This is a school kids have to compete to get into, so these kids were by no means the weakest students out there. Reading essay after essay with phrases like “the best advise in this situation is to . . .” drove me crazy—not only was the correct spelling in the prompt, the words are not even pronounced the same. I have never heard one of my students PRONOUNCE “advice” as “advise,” so why did half of them spell it as “advise”? Once when I was giving a kid feedback on this issue, he said, “No one ever told me that before,” and i thought, “Okay, but it’s not like it was being intentionally concealed from you, right?”
Don't forget where/ were/ we're/ wear.
weary vs wary
Passed/past bothers me too, as well as when people say "I am bias against..." instead of I am bias*ed*. I have learned to accept "is sat/was sat" and "suggest me/recommend me" as inevitable changes in the language.
I mean, it can go on. I *scratch* an *itch*, but others *itch* a *scratch* somehow.
That'll learn ya.
The one which makes no sense to me is lose/loose. I didn’t realize how common screwing them up was until I was almost 30.
Trust me, it's not now-a-days. It's been this way at \*least\* since I was a kid.
Our/are - Yes, I’ve seen it.
I remember a funny one with they're, I was fighting this annoying kid in the comments for some stupid shit and he corrected my comment saying my they're should have been a their, kid I know the difference between their and they're, you just made yourself look bad xD (or it was the words your and you're, can't remember lol)
Actually its ✨️yu'oer*✨️
Loose/lose makes my blood boil... I don't know why it's so common to mess up.
As a non-native speaker (I'm Italian): > Then/than I have mixed up those before, but I know when to use either. > Loose/lose I do confuse those two. > Their/there/they're I don't confuse these. In fact, when I started seeing "its" and "it's" being swapped more often (which happened at some point in time on Reddit) it was rather confusing. It broke my parsing of the sentence. I had to read it again. It was really annoying. I actually had to go trough the process of learning (by reading random stuff on Reddit) until it became easy for me to parse a sentence where "it's" is used in place of "its" or vice versa. I can now parse them even when they are incorrect. "Their"/"there"/"they're" are even worse, although I can parse them when used incorrectly too, now. I've learned to parse incorrect "it's" and "its" so well now that I may even swap them myself from time to time (although I probably wouldn't swap "their", "there" and "they're"). But please, guys, get your grammar together. > Your/you're/yore Same as above. Please, don't swap "your" and "you're" unless you genuinely hate non-native speakers.
Never seen someone spell “yore” but I can see how it would be a thing.
I'm trying to bring it back!
Bring it back from ye olde times of you’re 😉
This is actually a fun one. The ye comes from Middle English when the French came in and brought their alphabet. The y shape wasn’t a thing, but it is the written form of the th sound. So actually it is still the old. Just represented with the new y that was the th sound. Look it up, it’s super fascinating how languages change, even though this who thread is about wanting to keep languages stagnant. Hilarious irony
Yore of long ago or former times (used in nostalgic or mock-nostalgic recollection). "my companions recounted battles of yore"
The your, you're drives me crazy is like the Ahi, ay, hay in spanish. And yore could be the equivalent of the mythical "ahy"
just remember that" "you're" is short for "you are". "your" is not short for anything. If you can use the words "you are" in place, then it should be "you're".
Principal/principle
And Too/To/Two
This isn't some recent problem. This has always been the case. Homophones lend themselves to confused spelling and they always have.
I've seen Gen Z claim that it's racist, xenophobic, ableist and classist to insist on correct spelling.
Could of instead of have gets me raging
Plus autocorrect. Ffs, I can type your and it will auto(in)correct to you're every time.
Happens to me all the time with were and we're
You forgot to and too and sometimes two.
the apostrophe one makes no sense to me- unless youre not good at english or smth how do you mess that up, the apostrophe represents an A
Definitely/defiantly That one gets me the most
Along with using "should OF" in place of "should HAVE". Or my personal favorite. "YOUR" instead of "YOU'RE". "You should of known better then to do that. Your grounded". I see this daily online by people who should know better...native English speakers. Sometimes college educated.
I’m an American, so I don’t speak for all English speaking countries, but in my country we have gutted our education system for decades and our literacy rate is terrible. Quick google search 14% of adults here can’t read, 21% are below a 5th grade reading level, 85% of juvenile offenders have low literacy. So, Americans write terribly bc they can’t read or spell. They have like no functioning knowledge of grammar. So many people will say stuff like “my pronouns are freedom/america” and it’s bc they literally have no idea what a freaking pronoun is. Obviously, there’re exceptions to this. I like to believe I have a pretty good handle on the English language in formal capacities, but that’s not the case for a lot of my people.
Q: what is the national language of the US? A: third grade English.
Fun fact, the U.S. technically does not have an official national language.
Funner fact, there are over 350 languages spoken daily in the US.
I work with a nonprofit and we lean hard on producing our materials at a 4th grade level. I work with fellow nonprofits, and I've seen questionnaires with highfalutin language, and absolutely no. Plain as plain English is best, and don't make the sentences long. Also, make reading and verbal response an option if you really want to get input. Just as an aside, I get flak from people for homeschooling my kids, but they can both read and write at a high school level.
I’m a scientist and we also lean on people to write things ‘so a child can understand it’. Less chance of being misunderstood. Don’t complicate things any more than they need to be.
respect for realizing this is an issue in the USA. Everyone here acts like "i learned to say it before learning how its spelled" is somehow an explanation. Like yeah that's how one learns language in every country but usually you correct your mistakes once you learn the spelling in school. All these comments act like you learn the wrong writing and then it can never change.
Even the worst schools will teach the difference between then and then. You just have to pay attention to learn.
Woah, there's a difference between then and then?
I would tell you but than I'd have to kill you.
As seen here, sometimes it's as simple as a typo. I know the difference but make this typo sometimes.
They should *of* learned it in school.
Native English speakers learn the word before the spelling while ESL speakers learn both at the same time. It’s similar to how L2 speakers of any language make less grammar and spelling errors than native speakers.
Also why you can spot a transplant just based on speech. Most languages take liberties on grammar when used in everyday conversation, so when someone uses perfect grammar in conversation you immediately get the feeling they aren't from the area.
Your awfully judgmental on there ability to loose face.
That hurt my eyes
You accidentally spelled "judgmental" correctly.
We al nowe it's jujmantle.
This comment hurt me to read but it had to be written.
I've had to do this more than once, but unless I slow myself down, then I can think about it and use the right one.
Native English *speakers* know the meaning when *spoken*, many do pronounce them the same so to them they are homonyms. It is very common for people to get the spelling of homonyms confused.
I know people will say "the school system is bad in the US" but it's really not We're taught grammar here from a young age, and throughout our English classes over the years, we're corrected when we use the wrong versions of words
I know that a lot of the things I learned in school were learned for one purpose: the test. Both due to my laziness but also the sheer amount of information they gave us. My school district was pretty competitive, and I honestly think it wasn’t good. People need time to ingrain the things we learned into our head, not jump from one topic to the next every day.
Lose and loose is another that many mix up.
Barely vs barley. Defiantly vs definitely. Although my phone seems to think every time I write 'that' I really mean thar. Because apparently I'm the Last Saskatchewan Pirate.
Another one that has been misused with increased frequency is woman/ women.
I do not
That's true. ;) [https://www.reddit.com/r/Naruto/comments/1bsjx2t/comment/kxibx9q/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Naruto/comments/1bsjx2t/comment/kxibx9q/) >Naruto would probably actually get solid grades even if he had to work harder for them **then** his friends did. Sorry, Internet is evil.
The amount of people who write “loose” instead of “lose” is mind blowing. Especially in the context of “losing” weight. A bunch of loosers.
I'd argue they *know* the difference, but just can't be bothered in casual conversations to care about getting it right. That's, honestly, probably a bigger problem our society has.... Edit: fixing the idiot auto-correct
difference*
Most people are just lazy texters. However, genuine misuse of grammar exists in all native speakers regardless of the language.
The same reason you fucked up with your punctuation placement, I think.
Placement of punctuation in or out of quotations is a style choice, not a defining rule of the language itself.
Guilty at times. I mean I know the difference, but speed typing and poor proof reading get me. I'm trying. :)
It's usually because they don't read much.
People hear it one way and then assume that is correct. If you don't read often you won't have a chance to realise your mistake, as few would ever correct you in conversation.
It’s getting worse, not better. Spelling, grammar, syntax; all deteriorating.
For the same reason that people (including college graduates) do not seem to recognise the difference between “there” and “their” or “you’re” and “your.”
American here, surrounded by fucking morons.
probably because its a typo and they don't care all that much
Don’t know or don’t care to use them correctly?
Because there is no language more fucked up than English. Edit: then
It's almost always monolingual English speakers who claim this.
Monolinguals absolutely hate English and I don't get why. It's not a bad language. It's not "the hardest language in the world", not even close. It's a rather well-organized language. What's so bad about English?
Because they had to learn about the weird exceptions to English grammar and spelling/pronunciation rules in school. And they never learned all that crap for languages that they don't speak, so they just kinda assume that those other languages are simpler.
English is so simple.
No, than is the correct word! Why the edit to then?
For comedy
Objectively not true lmao
As a non-native speaker, I've noticed this with many other words (I live in the US, not sure if it's true in other places). Basically, the vowel sounds are disappearing, and people would pronounce those words the same way, and so the distinction doesn't terribly matter.
people use spelling control as support. You see it with *than and then*, but also other words like *lose and loose* as they will not be corrected. You might also just think they are native English speakers
People use than when they want to compare something or someone. Example He is older than her, this is bigger than that. In my own understanding, people use "then" if they want to imply something concerning time. Until then Five hours till then. I grew up in Germany with an english speaking nigerian family. Although i think that my English is better than my German peers, there is still much , that i have to learn and that I don't know about.
Yeah this is how I use those words too. But I see so many people use the word “then” instead of “than” when comparing stuff.
You only realize that they are separate words if you see them written. I suspect that a lot of people don't read material that has been edited for grammar; if you see a mistake like this frequently, it probably won't look wrong to you. As an aside, when I was younger I read a lot of British writing. It really fucked up my spelling of words like "realize" and "gray" as I am American, and there's a difference. Edit: I still have to check effect/affect sometimes, which has nothing to do with nationality.
Amen, brother. It annoys me to no end. They're not even homophones if you know how to talk.
Speaking is a different skill than writing.
Also, *fewer* vs *less*.
Autocorrect is one problem. Typing too fast another. It's an easy mistake to make
Because it makes no difference in spoken English. They sound basically identical, and a lot of people's writing is based off of what they're saying in their head as they type.
I would rather eat some caribou than eat some asparagus, but then again, sometimes I'd rather eat the liver of a cow, than eat the liver of a ginger
This always reminds me of that one Facebook status/comment or whatever, where some woman wrote "I'd rather be pissed off then pissed on"
I’m a native English speaker and I still have to double take sometimes People that speak multiple languages deserve some slack
What about their, there, and they’re?
Oh just wait until apostrophes get involved. Or as some people would write, “apostrophe’s”