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Comment by fsckboy | Hacker News Reader

his spelling error was "would've" and "may've"

I see that more and more recently, English spelled phonetically. Like "their" instead of "they're" and the example above. Very curious whether it's an American thing or foreigners writing a non-native language.

In my case it is aspergers and kinda how it logically ingrained upon my brain, with spelling and grammar rules being fraught with exceptions. It is and always will be, my kryptonite area. So curiosity in this instance falls outside your suspicions, but then every rule has an exception. Native British language autistic spectrum in this instance.

Still, thanks for the corrections and appreciate any constructive feedback. Also help curiosity quelled, I know what it is like to have a question and not know the answer.

With the most common North American accent "would've" and "would of" sound very similar. My suspicion is that the error tends to arise in people that have learned language more from speaking than reading.

In my instance, that would have a strong correlation and never read fictional material, autistic spectrum imagination thing for me, but love burning thru an RFC.

So in my instance, I would tend to agree with that observation and support that as a large factor from personal experience.

Huh. Could "would of" be a regionalism? I sometimes say "woulda", but don't write it.

No, it's an error. "Woulda" is the correct way of spelling a regionalism. "Would of" is an incorrect spelling of "would've", which is a contraction of "would have".

Hey, just thought I'd ask. You never know when you're gonna need a new voice ;)

I'm a brit and do it out of lazyness.

How does that work? Surely deliberately typing the wrong word takes more effort?

Not necessarily due to muscle memory and easy of access upon keyboard or mostly soft keyboard layout for punctuation access. But mostly muscle memory. Heck could even view having to add the extra layer of shortening a two words into one is a process born out to save ink in a time when ink and print space was more costly and perhaps a form of lazyness that is more accepted than just having the full words.

Like most things, perspective plays a part in how you view such things and we are all aware that such oversights can trigger people as much as those triggered responses being triggers for others. Which is odd as the meaning of words is how to communicate and in the instance of shorting words, nothing is lost in translation.

But then standards in words and layout, styles, when it comes to standards are more complex than any coding standards and we all know how legacy code works out when it comes to standards. Another way to view that is, imagine if COBOL had as many verbs as we do English words - yeah scary what legacy code would look like then and sorry if that becomes the source of any nightmares in old COBOL programmers with that analogy.

No. It takes more effort to clearly remember and apply all such distinctions.

These are the sorts of mistakes typically made by native speakers for whom they sound the same and inability to remember that they are spelled differently has zero bearing on spoken fluency. It's a different skill set and a different part of the brain.

WHat may be seen as a mistake, is in many ways akin to local accents and in the UK, we have many local accents that can and do make verbal communication just as much throught with interpretation more than wording. Yet verbal accent and localisms are more accepted than the written forms.

After all - how many of us have the internal verbal processing rule now that hears the word "good" when we hear the word "Bad" based around the age and maturity of the speaker? Many I suspect and that is just one of many you end up having to mentally compile into your rule list, just to communicate with people who are not yourself.

Imagine a coding language that gained new verbs daily, new rules and interpretation rules that change the dynamics of those words - yes languages can be hard to keep abreast with if you try to grasp every nuance as what is correct today, is not tomorrow. Jst try reading Chaucer and then wonder how fast until what is written today is viewed as another language in years ahead, even if the same language as languages evolve and English like many move faster than we imagine. Composing words into sentences that stand the test of time, now that is a skill. However even time can be cruel on the best intentions.

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