this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 94 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Their messing up theyre theres, theirs and they'res again?

[–] [email protected] 46 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What a terrible day to be able to read.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

I'm going to learn it this way now, their sharing missinformation online. context: I'm not native.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I hate the fact that you're right

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Idk why it's hard for anyone. But on the other hand my apostrophies are all little catostrophies.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Non-native English speakers usually don't make such mistakes. Natives write "by ear" (which is how you initially learn your first language), so they can mix up homophonic words, whereas non-natives usually learned to write at the same time as they learned to speak the language, and they also had the rules and words explained 100% explicitly from the start.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

An interesting explanation.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Native speaker here, never had any issues with this or any other common homophone in English. I mean, yes, spelling mistakes did occur, and we now have autocorrect to further screw things up. But I never “learned the rules” and still got everything consistently correct from a rather early age.

“Learning by ear” is just another excuse for laziness and/or ignorance. Pick up books, read extensively, and like anyone else not marinating in cultivated ignorance, you too can utilize the language effectively and correctly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Native speaker here, never had any issues with this or any other common homophone in English.

Ok? I didn't say all natives make such mistakes, it's just that they're substantially more prone to make them, "by design". Non-natives will make various spelling mistakes too, just of different sorts, rarely those based on homophones.

“Learning by ear” is just another excuse for laziness and/or ignorance

But that's how every native language is learned, it's not "laziness". You listen to your parents and learn to speak years before you develop usable reading abilities. Writing is learned afterwards, and largely bases itself on your knowledge of the oral form of the language. This applies to any language written in an alphabet (i.e. disregarding Chinese and similar).

Pick up books, read extensively, and like anyone else not marinating in cultivated ignorance, you too can utilize the language effectively and correctly.

If this humble advice is directed at me - thanks a lot, but we've been talking about native English speakers, which I am not.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I once had a teacher who was very meticulous about conditional sentences. She would get upset (not actually but this kind of fake upset) when you said "If I would've ... then it would've ...", and that's why conditional sentences are the only rule I know by heart and I improvise everything else :3

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Your making alot of assumptions their

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Woah, they’re. Don’t be so combative

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

That's a joke, because that's the way people make mistakes with apostrophes all the time.

The correct spelling is indeed "catastrophes", but a lot of people would spell it "catastrophe's" (which technically means "the [...] of catastrophe").

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Why did catasthropie hoard all our apostrophies?

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago

Their you go!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I like double contractions like "they'd've"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I'd've'f'they'd've stop'd...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

That's actually a nice one.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Never seen this before and its great!
My education greatly lacked graphic design, the use of symbols and tricks pretty much entirely.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I've understood the difference since I was 6 years old, I have vivid lucid memories of learning about this stuff in the first grade, but my "smart" phone's voice-to-text still can't figure it out.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

here (direction) vs heir (people)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

There for locations

Their for when they are decapitated.

Simple

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Reject Linguistic prescription embrace linguistic description.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Where's the fancy doodle for "they're?"