For example, English speakers commonly mix up your/you’re or there/their/they’re. I’m curious about similar mistakes in other languages.

  • Illecors@lemmy.cafe
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    1 year ago

    I see your point, but my personal view is that I like order. I don’t even care too much about specific kind of order. Chaotic-looking things can also be in-order (my favourite example is Vietnamese traffic).

    I would argue at least is not equal to the least. It’s a different word, despite being spelt the same. There are a few examples like that which, unfortunately, escape me at the moment.

    Also, don’t mean any offence, but text is difficult to relay that - I’ve literally loled at you mispelling grammar in the sentence talking about grammar and spelling :D

    • At least and the least both use the same “least”. The context of their use mag be different, but if we’re sticking to strict grammar as written down by the booke, they’re both superlatives of “little”. The usage of less and least changed a bit when English dropped a bunch of grammatical cases over the years (“less of words” became “less words” because of this) but the word hasn’t changed much other than that the spelling got reformed a few hundred years ago to match pronunciation more closely.

      I swear to god autocorrect is trying its bery hardest to turn grammar into grammer and I have no idea why. I’ve explicitly told it not to suggest grammer again but it keeps trying to incorrectly correct me. I blame AI.

    • CanadaPlus@futurology.today
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      1 year ago

      I’m actually with you - building out our plural system would be a satisfying direction for English to go. Unfortunately, I don’t see “at fewest” catching on. Maybe I’ll try it out a few.

      If you look at non-standard dialects of English, it seems like the most natural thing is for the aspect system to grow out as the language evolves further (and unfortunately lose some of it’s symmetries).