Word or spelling errors which frequently crop up on social media posts (Trivia)

[contrex]

It would matter to an English teacher retired or otherwise and the occasional pedant most likely.

It matters to me, and I am neither.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Jan 2025 ==

Changing the gender of the well-known Edinburgh location from Princes to Princess Street Gardens - And I have even seen both forms used in the same post!

Plenty of Bristolians turn Queen Square into Queen's Square and King Street into King's Street. Not forgetting White Ladies Road.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Jan 2025 ==

The problem is it also sometimes swaps one perfectly valid word for another, even when both words would work equally well in the context of the sentence you're typing and in some cases where using the 'corrected' word turns a coherent sentence into nonsense.

I'm one of those common people who uses Android phones and tablets (I spend the savings on single malt) but 'autocorrect' on mine offers me choices, one of which is what I typed originally, so selecting a wrong word would be a deliberate choice for me, unless I am missing something?

I was just going to write that one of my frequent annoyances is 'publically' instead of 'publicly', but I thought I'd better check, and was very surprised to see that the Oxford English, Collins , and Merriam-Webster dictionaries all give 'publically' as an acceptable variant spelling.

My sister visits a well known discussion forum called Mumsnet, and she says she often sees 'low and behold' on there.

 

[gg1]

I'm one of those common people who uses Android phones and tablets (I spend the savings on single malt) but 'autocorrect' on mine offers me choices, one of which is what I typed originally, so selecting a wrong word would be a deliberate choice for me, unless I am missing something?

I use android too, on my phone autocorrect gives me three options, one of which is the word I just typed plus two alternatives. The problem is it sometimes defaults to one of the alternatives even when the the word I just typed is a valid and correctly spelled word, in which case I need to manually select the word I want. The end result is it slows down how quickly I can type on my phone and I don't always notice autocorrect has changed a word until after tapping 'post reply'.

 

[DM352]

US spelling defaulted in Canada. We still have a ‘u’ like in the UK. Granted, there are some US words used like aluminum

 

[contrex]

I use android too, on my phone autocorrect gives me three options, one of which is the word I just typed plus two alternatives. The problem is it sometimes defaults to one of the alternatives even when the the word I just typed is a valid and correctly spelled word, in which case I need to manually select the word I want. The end result is it slows down how quickly I can type on my phone and I don't always notice autocorrect has changed a word until after tapping 'post reply'.

This has motivated me to look into the text correction settings on my Motorola Moto G8 Power phone (Android 11). It's all there! You can enable/disable just about everything to do with text input using the on-screen keyboard: suggestions, autocorrect, smart compose, and lots more...

 

[gg1]

This has motivated me to look into the text correction settings on my Motorola Moto G8 Power phone (Android 11). It's all there! You can enable/disable just about everything to do with text input using the on-screen keyboard: suggestions, autocorrect, smart compose, and lots more...

Never occurred to me to look tbh, I've only ever used phones with their default settings, but prompted by that I'll see if I can improve them

 

[contrex]

Never occurred to me to look tbh, I've only ever used phones with their default settings, but prompted by that I'll see if I can improve them

On mine it's Settings - System - Languages & input - On-screen keyboard - Gboard - Text Correction and I get to 11 options I can turn on and off. Hours of fun. Gboard - Preferences is interesting too.

 

[GordonT]

"Please delete if not aloud". "Americans are aloud to bare arms".

 

[Purple Train]

One which always annoyed me, though is less common on here now, was "Tory light" for "Tory-lite". The number of times I typed a correction but took it out to avoid the inevitable rebuke...

Similarly "phenomenon" (singular) and "phenomena" (plural) - I have seen the singular used as a plural, and the plural used as a singular on here, including in a very long-running thread's title, and given I hope I am allowed to be adequately annoyed on this particular thread, I shall place my annoyance on record here!

 

[Ediswan]

Similarly "phenomenon" and "phenomena" - I have seen the singular used as a plural, and the plural used as a singular on here, including in a very long-running thread's title, and given I hope I am allowed to be adequately annoyed on this particular thread, I shall place my annoyance on record here!

Any chance you could edit your post to show which is which, to help reduce future errors.

 

[Purple Train]

Any chance you could edit your post to show which is which, to help reduce future errors.

Done!

 

[AM9]

Any chance you could edit your post to show which is which, to help reduce future errors.

It is a phenomenon and some phenomena, likewise criterion and criteria! Slightly different, there's datum (singular) and data (plural).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jan 2025 ==

Here in St Albans, there's been ongoing dbate about whether it's St Albans or St Alban's, even some signwriters get it wrong at times, Then along comes the americanism Saint Albans. Arguablt there are more Saint Albans in the US than St Albans in the UK, but to the locals it's always been St, pronounced 'snt', or even 'Snorbens'.

 

[Merle Haggard]

One which always annoyed me, though is less common on here now, was "Tory light" for "Tory-lite". The number of times I typed a correction but took it out to avoid the inevitable rebuke...

Similarly "phenomenon" (singular) and "phenomena" (plural) - I have seen the singular used as a plural, and the plural used as a singular on here, including in a very long-running thread's title, and given I hope I am allowed to be adequately annoyed on this particular thread, I shall place my annoyance on record here!

And the title of this thread reminds me that some people don't realise that 'media' is the plural form. - for example writing 'the print media'. But, by contrast, the plural of 'stadium' is often written as 'stadiums'. Either consistently use the English form of plural (-s), or the appropriate one reflecting the word's origin.

 

[GordonT]

Rather to my surprise "terminuses" is an acceptable alternative to "termini" in most dictionaries for the plural of terminus.

 

[jfollows]

And definitely “forums” instead of “fora”, which just sounds pretentious to me anyway, even with my Latin O level.

 

[Ediswan]

Here in St Albans, there's been ongoing dbate about whether it's St Albans or St Alban's, even some signwriters get it wrong at times, Then along comes the americanism Saint Albans. Arguablt there are more Saint Albans in the US than St Albans in the UK, but to the locals it's always been St, pronounced 'snt', or even 'Snorbens'.

I quite like 'Snail Barns'.

 

[oldman]

And the title of this thread reminds me that some people don't realise that 'media' is the plural form. - for example writing 'the print media'.

According to the Oxford dictionary 'The word media comes from the Latin plural of medium. In modern English it can be treated as either a singular or plural noun'.

 

[Merle Haggard]

According to the Oxford dictionary 'The word media comes from the Latin plural of medium. In modern English it can be treated as either a singular or plural noun'.

Interesting, thanks.
On the other hand, The New Fowler's Modern English Usage third edition 1996 under 'media' states 'Above all, never write a media or the medias'.
However, Fowler's does say 'it is often treated as a mass noun with a singular verb or pronoun'; perhaps this is what Oxford has in mind.

 

[Tetchytyke]

"Up to" is frequently misused as though it means "approximately".

For example, you may read "up to ten thousand people will be affected" when the intended meaning is "approximately ten thousand people will be affected".

The Isle of Man comedy motorcycle stunt team The Purple Helmets used to use that as a basis of a joke. They would be doing their cunning stunts at speeds of up to 100mph, as they trundled past on their Honda 90s.

As for common word errors, my favourite one on social media is always colon instead of cologne. "I love the smell of my boyfriend's colon".

 

[dcbwhaley]

According to the Oxford dictionary 'The word media comes from the Latin plural of medium. In modern English it can be treated as either a singular or plural noun'.

I am quite sure that most in the newspaper industry would object to being called mediums rather than media

 

[MotCO]

According to the Oxford dictionary 'The word media comes from the Latin plural of medium. In modern English it can be treated as either a singular or plural noun'.

Likewise, 'dice' is actually the plural of 'die', as in the small cube with spots you use in games, but no-one ever calls it a die.

 

[Merle Haggard]

Likewise, 'dice' is actually the plural of 'die', as in the small cube with spots you use in games, but no-one ever calls it a die.

But there is the saying 'the die is cast' meaning that an important and irreversible decision has been made.
Perhaps people use it without understanding the meaning - see also 'one bad apple'...

 

[Richardr]

It is a phenomenon and some phenomena, likewise criterion and criteria! Slightly different, there's datum (singular) and data (plural).

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jan 2025 ==

Here in St Albans, there's been ongoing dbate about whether it's St Albans or St Alban's, even some signwriters get it wrong at times, Then along comes the americanism Saint Albans. Arguablt there are more Saint Albans in the US than St Albans in the UK, but to the locals it's always been St, pronounced 'snt', or even 'Snorbens'.

and the Met Office website has both St Albans and St. Albans when one searches for a forecast [it took me a while to work out why it had two places].

 

[Cowley]

I used “there” instead of “their” in something I can’t go back and edit yesterday and I still haven’t quite got over it (genuinely ).

I feel like I had a few gaps in my education where it came to grammar (I probably wasn’t paying enough attention at the time) and although I’ve always read a lot, I’ve had to work on things to make sure that I don’t make really obvious mistakes at times...

 

[Ediswan]

But there is the saying 'the die is cast' meaning that an important and irreversible decision has been made.
Perhaps people use it without understanding the meaning - see also 'one bad apple'...

I always took that as a reference to metal casting, pouring liquid metal into a die.

 

[Gomper]

It’s are country

 

[Ediswan]

Lose and loose.

 

[jfollows]

I always took that as a reference to metal casting, pouring liquid metal into a die.

‘alea iacta est‘, originally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alea_iacta_est

 

[GordonT]

Whilst not "errors" as such, some of us of a certain age may occasionally experience a frisson of angst when encountering expressions such as "reaching out" for contacting and words such as "Amazing!" and "Perfect!" as being a bit hi-spec by way of responses to something fairly mundane. But I guess that's just the reaction of the old fogy/fogey in me.

 

[AM9]

Whilst not "errors" as such, some of us of a certain age may occasionally experience a frisson of angst when encountering expressions such as "reaching out" for contacting and words such as "Amazing!" and "Perfect!" as being a bit hi-spec by way of responses to something fairly mundane. But I guess that's just the reaction of the old fogy/fogey in me.

Probably the biggest irritation at the moment with me is the expression "Get Go". Its words don't mean anything together and it doesn't even form shortening of what it claims to be about.

 

[Merle Haggard]

I always took that as a reference to metal casting, pouring liquid metal into a die.

Yes, I agree that's a possible alternative meaning which I myself originally thought - but using a die ('diecast') is not the most common form of casting, and technically a die isn't cast - the die is used to mould the casting. 'Cast in the same/diabolical/a different mould' are sayings which certainly do reflect metal casting, using a more common method (pattern>sand>mould) of casting. Alternatively, die casting was used in the Linotype process, so 'the die is cast' could be intended to mean that a line of type is made, and cannot then be altered, and will be printed out in quantity.

However, in my defence my favourite recourse New Fowler's Modern English Usage does side with me - quoting the reference to "Dice - plural of die (noun) (as in the die is cast, now fig., 'the decisive step is taken')". (fig. = figuratively)

Interesting - another example of how the more you think about things the less clear they become. That's why I don't vote any more .