What'd You Say?

I don't know if the internet has merely exposed poor English language skill/knowledge or actually encouraged it.

I know that in the heat of typing something quickly so as to be an early responder, mistakes get made. I know that because I make them. But I'm not talking about typos here.

I'm talking about a regular pattern of poor English.

Not everyone excels at language arts. I understand this. Some people are good at math. Others enjoy history or art. My own sister has a tendency to misspell the word "picture" as "pitcure." I've watched her do it several times.

However, I’ve seen an ongoing misuse of words and poor spelling that spans across many people.

For instance, the use of the word “of” in place of “have.” I can't say how many times I've read a Facebook post that said something like this, "I should of done something about it." I know that elided speech tends to make "have" sound like "of." But "have" here creates the past perfect tense of the verb "done" and "of' doesn't do a thing except take up space.

Another common - and I have no idea from where this came - mistake is the misspelling of "huge" as "hugh". The letters "e" and "h" aren't even near each other on the keyboard, so it can't be a mistype. I guess I am to understand that there are a lot of hugh things and events out there and we probably must be careful.

Compound words are not unusual. Nobody, somebody, someone, anybody, anyone. How about "noone?" I see it quite frequently and every time I do I want to say something about Peter Noone, former frontman for the Herman's Hermits. Turning "no one" into the compound "noone" is not accepted in traditional English rules. One of the problems with it is that it looks as if it should be pronounced much like "noon." In fact, I believe it is an archaic variant of the word.

But it seems people insist on using it in the manner described.

Of course, there's always the "its" and "it's" issue as well as "there", "their" and "they're." To be honest, sometimes I have to stop and think if I used the correct word and have caught myself having to change it.

It's a dicey move to try and correct someone on their English. I once made the comment that jewelry is not pronounced as joolery, and a fellow I knew from college became incensed. He didn't think it a good idea for me to offer up correction as it had the potential to hurt someone's feelings. If I read between the lines of what he wrote to me, I have to assume that perhaps he does, indeed, pronounce it as joolery. Yet he tried to make himself sound like the grand protector of all things ego.

I don't spend much time correcting people online - only in venues where I know it will be appreciated. I do wonder, though, what the language will look like ten, twenty years from now.

After all, without adherence to some sort of rules, order will be reduced to chaos.