this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2025
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What about similar oddities in English?
(This question is inspired by this comic by https://www.exocomics.com/193/ (link found by BunScientist@lemmy.zip)) Edit: it's to its in the title. Damn autocorrect.

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[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Pretty much only native speakers have problems with this, I see this type of mistake far less frequently with those who learned English as an additional language.

[–] Samskara@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago

Exactly. People with English as a second language go from meaning to writing. Native speakers go from sound to writing.

There, their, they’re is something native speakers confuse as well. I have only ever observed native speaker write should of instead of should‘ve or should have.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Pretty much only native speakers have problems with this

99% agree with this. This is a native speaker issue, except where someone took up bad habits from the natives...

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Pretty much only native speakers have problems with this

That makes no sense since they would use it more, however native speakers from the US do have problems with it, and other words (they're/their).

Rarely encounter it with others.
Their spelling is embarrassing, same as their very limited vocabulary. IDK what they do in schools.

[–] bigfondue@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Native speakers acquire the language before learning to read. Remember, writing is a representation of spoken language not the other way round.

[–] bigfondue@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

No it is. People were speaking for tens of thousands of years before they started writing. Modern people see the written word as more valid than spoken, but it's a historical quirk that words pronounced identically should be spelled differently in English. Words that are spelled differently in English were once pronounced differently as well, but languages change and our spelling system is frozen in the 1600s.

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Modern people are the written word as more valid than spoken

Now there's a sentence I can't make sense of.

There is no influence of history in when kids learn to write their language or if they used it orally, they learn to write it then how it's supposed to be written.
If your reasons were valid every Anglo would have problems, they don't.
Since it's noticably the US specifically I can only assume it's sub standard education.
As confirmed by their poor vocabulary compared to other Anglo's

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

That is still not a valid reason.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's true that I see it more rarely with the British. I suppose they read more or something.

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Possibly, education is my main guess