Should of, could of but in the end just couldn't

Malky

I brought a CD off eBay. Could of got it from the High Street but my mate told me it was cheaper on their. His advise had a good affect on saving me some money.



PS. People who mix up accepted and excepted. ie. Offers excepted = offers will be dismissed?????

Jemima5317

Ha ha! excepted and accepted - oh yes. Also, although I'm quite sympathetic to this mistake, complementary and complimentary. Always makes me smile as I remember the joke about a man going into an empty pub and hearing a voice saying "My, you DO look smart", "what a great choice of outfit today sir", barman eventually comes in, asks what man wants to drink, and says "don't mind the peanuts, they're complimentary".

wuckfit

Malky wrote: »

I brought a CD off eBay. Could of got it from the High Street but my mate told me it was cheaper on their. His advise had a good affect on saving me some money.



PS. People who mix up accepted and excepted. ie. Offers excepted = offers will be dismissed?????

yeah but you still used "brought" when you should have used bought not only that YOU didn't bring it from eBay, the postman brought it to you.
One more time: brought = past tense of the verb "to bring".
bought = past tense of the verb "to buy"


and.... relax.

where was my darkened room again?

Malky

wuckfit wrote: »

yeah but you still used "brought" when you should have used bought not only that YOU didn't bring it from eBay, the postman brought it to you.
One more time: brought = past tense of the verb "to bring".
bought = past tense of the verb "to buy"


and.... relax.

where was my darkened room again?

My post was to p!ss people off and it worked

mrbrightside842

My dad has a broad accent, and he seems to spell things how he says them. I think that's a lot of the problem now. Mum used to tell us off for speaking like him, telling us that if we couldn't say the words correctly, we'd never be able to write them correctly.

wuckfit

Malky wrote: »

My post was to p!ss people off and it worked

You, sir, are a cad! and a bounder!

mickeypops

On the subject of local dialects, it's common in Ayrshire for peoply to say "I'm are" or "I'm are no' ", meaning "I am" or "I am not." (The "I'm" is pronounced more like "Am" though.)

Always makes me chuckle.

davetrousers

The word random is often misused too, when they mean odd, unusual, perculiar et cetera

ClootiesMum

I think I've just found my heaven in this thread.

The TV gets shouted at when people tell me he fell to the floor in the road - surely it's the ground - or is it a posh road with carpet?

And on football games Manchester United v Manchester City. V is not a word - say versus....

And mi'splaced or mis'sing apostrophes - AAARGGGHHHH

But being from sunny Scotland I know I'm guilty of a horrible sin - seemingly it's a Scots trait to measure distance in time - How far is the local supermarket? 5 minutes down the road of course:o

CM

DVardysShadow

wigglebeena wrote: »

Speaking of common usage, when did the good old hyphen get replaced with the 'em-dash'? (If you don't know what I'm on about, check any American blog by an aspiring writer, they're always on about it.) My own English lessons in schoolly days were a bit wanting (I don't think my teacher had got to CSE level herself), so no doubt someone's going to come along and point out that that has always been the correct format...

MarzipanFish wrote: »

I noticed that word sometimes makes hyphens longer but i didn't know why.

The em-dash derives from printing, where there is also a en-dash. The difference is that the em-dash is the width of a lower case 'm' and the en-dash, surprisingly, the width of a lower case 'n'. Correct usage - so I am told - is for the dashes in this sentence to be em-dashes. And the en-dash alone should appear in this sentence.

Prior to word processors, only the typewriter was generally available and the hyphen had to do in both roles. The em-dash came in to general use with word processing. Because the rule is so straightforward, your word processor should know which dash to use when you press the hyphen key - hence word will be seen to pt in longer dashes.