ridiculous, not ''rediculous''

getreal   Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:56 am GMT
<<Hmm, that's certainly not true here, I'd say the majority of adults are complely unaware of the correct form to use. >>

So you live in the ghetto or what?
12345   Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:00 pm GMT
People who don't know the differences between 'their' and 'there'. Just saw it in an official article on Yahoo.com


«Jessica Alba may be back to her pre-baby body, but getting their wasn't easy. The actress told Elle magazine that her workouts were so grueling that she would cry afterwards.»

argh... Getting their......................
http://omg.yahoo.com/photos/week-in-photos-february-1-7-2009/2636?nc#id=9
louismf888   Wed Feb 18, 2009 8:19 am GMT
listen, here's the thing, the reason for the must of must have thing, comes down to one very simple fact, dialect. Yes, if written in a academic paper, or otherwise, educated forum, then sure, it is ridiculous. But, used commonly, it is merely a reflection of a certain area's pronunciation or diction. I find it funny that so many people get offended by such instances, when, if you study the English language, you find an incredible amount of discrepancies in spelling. These very things, these minutiae of expression, are the very things that make the language such an interesting one. Historically, if we were to look back, and think. wow, that is weird that many people used to use 'have' instead of 'of', we'd be in a completely different frame of mind. Indeed, currently it is wrong to use 'of' instead of 'have' when referencing this certain state, but oppossitionally, simply, because the elongation of an abbreviated form starts to take precedent over the correct phrasing of the standard English does not necessarily make it wrong. Long live dialect and colloquialisms, otherwise the English language would be bland and stagnant. So, perhaps, it sound terrible now, to your educated ears, but let loose for a little while, and see just how this might progress and turn into something that is truly wonderful.
Amabo   Wed Feb 18, 2009 5:19 pm GMT
"Long live dialect and colloquialisms, otherwise the English language would be bland and stagnant."

Very bland and stagnant. It would be a dead language like Latin.
Another Guest   Thu Feb 19, 2009 6:47 am GMT
Another word that is like "ridiculous" in terms of meaning and frequency of misspelling is "ludicrous". I wonder how much of this is caused by the hip-hop artist's name, and how much of it is the other way around.

12345 said:
<I'm always embarrassed when I see an American or Englishman writing down things like "I would of done it that way". Seriously, how is it possible to make such a mistake if you're a native speaker? Oftenly I see mistakes which are kicked out in the first few English exercises we have in secondary school.
Of course I can't write English perfectly as well but I'm not a native speaker.
And well it is true, some words in English are difficult because there doesn't seem to be any phonetical reference in some words.>

"Oftenly" isn't a word, and I'm not convinced "phonetical" is, either.

wretched said:
<The only place you see this mistake is in computer writing, it's called a typo.>

Occasionally it's just a typo, but I think that most of the time, it's a question of simply not knowing which to write. After all, if it were merely a typo, why are people writing "your" instead of "you're" much more frequently than "your'e"?

Uriel said:
<"Would of" and "would have" are generally pronounced the same way, which leads to the confusion in spelling.>

No, "would've" and "would of" are pronounced the same. The fact that people regularly spell it "would of" shows that they are not, in their minds, saying "would have".
don't you understand?   Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:30 am GMT
<<Occasionally it's just a typo, but I think that most of the time, it's a question of simply not knowing which to write. After all, if it were merely a typo, why are people writing "your" instead of "you're" much more frequently than "your'e"? >>

It's because they unconsciously write the first one that pops into their head. If they stopped and thought about it they would know which was correct, but when you're writing quickly you often forget or can't be bothered.
T   Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:46 am GMT
I believe the issue is actually quite subtle. The link between written language and spoken language sometimes acts in surprising ways. I grew up speaking Latvian, which is, so to speak, a WYSIWYG language - you can tell how to pronounce almost any word based on the way it's spelled. At a comparatively early age I learned written English well enough to fool native people into believing I was a native speaker - as long as they didn't hear me actually speaking. Because of the WYSIWYG nature of my native language, in my mind I formed a strong correspondence between the way a word was spelled and the way it was pronounced - as you can imagine, this led to a substantial accent.

Now here's the funny part: As I got seriously into accent work, my written English began to suffer. I started writing things like "wride it" instead of "write it" - I would catch the mistakes almost immediately, but still, my first instinct was toward the "phonetic" form. I would never, ever have made that mistake before because my knowledge of the language was primarily visual. As I worked on my aural/oral knowledge, however, the way my brain produced written text came into conflict with my new training.

This had nothing to do with ignorance or lack of education, and everything to do with the way my brain processes language. I think languages like English, where spelling is so disconnected from pronunciation, are particularly problematic in this regard.

So I would caution you not to assume that, just because someone writes "would of" when they should write "would have" or "would've", they don't know the usage is wrong. They might just be unaware of what their brain is doing when they type.
Caspian   Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:34 am GMT
<< So I would caution you not to assume that, just because someone writes "would of" when they should write "would have" or "would've", they don't know the usage is wrong. They might just be unaware of what their brain is doing when they type. >>

Yes, but this isn't really the case. Sometimes they even SAY 'would of' instead of would have. The reason for this is because both 'have' and 'of' are abbreviated in speech to an 'uhv' sound, so they assume that there's no difference.
Uriel   Fri Feb 20, 2009 3:03 am GMT
They say there is more dyslexia diagnosed in English speakers than in other languages, and that dyslexics who speak languages with phonetic spellings often cope much better with their disability than English-speaking sufferers. It seems the visual disconnect between spelling and speaking is so great in English that it really messes up people whose brains already suffer from faulty wiring. Even those with normal reading abilities often make the occasional misspelling or have to rack their brains for the rules, or even stare at a perfectly correctly-spelled word once in a while, thinking, nah, that just doesn't look right. (Right now I'm trying to decide if it's "rack" or "wrack" for instance. I could cheat and look it up, but I'm going to leave it as is, because it illustrates my point so beautifully!)
Another Guest   Fri Feb 20, 2009 3:37 am GMT
T, are you saying that you learned that the "correct" pronunciation of "write" is [wride]?
T   Fri Feb 20, 2009 3:47 am GMT
Well, that's not phonetic spelling or anything, but 't' generally becomes a medial d between vowels in American English. So that 'write it' and 'ride it' sound the same. In isolation, this is not the case, of course - if you just say 'write' as a standalone word or before a consonant ('write that'), the 'write' sound will typically end with a silent, stopped 't' (not sure what the correct term is).
Uriel   Fri Feb 20, 2009 3:51 am GMT
Unaspirated T. We don't aspirate them at the ends of words in the US (we don't give them that extra breath afterwards that sharpens the sound).
Bob   Fri Feb 20, 2009 4:04 am GMT
The T at the end of a word could also be pronounced as a glottal stop.
Caspian   Fri Feb 20, 2009 8:52 am GMT
<< They say there is more dyslexia diagnosed in English speakers than in other languages, and that dyslexics who speak languages with phonetic spellings often cope much better with their disability than English-speaking sufferers. >>

Is it possible that all these claims of dyslexia are not in fact dyslexia at all, but just excuses for stupidity? I mean, our government seems to love a chance to be 'supportive' about 'less able' people.
Kim   Fri Feb 20, 2009 11:51 am GMT
Some people are unfortunate... but for how long? You help a person in need once or twice but when they keep coming back indefinitely, they're probably just "crutching" off the system to make up for laziness (which is often synonymous with stupidity).