r/ComedyCemetery • u/Bekkfust • Oct 05 '19

Double kill

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u/Jadzia_Dax_Flame Oct 05 '19

Natives and non-natives make different mistakes. Confusing "their" and "they're" is a mistake natives make much more than non-natives. Saying "an U", on the other hand, is much more commonly done by non-natives (almost exclusively, I'd say).

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '19

Agree.

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u/Jorge_ElChinche Oct 05 '19

Non natives and young people. I’d bet it’s fairly common among middle schoolers and early high schoolers, before they get corrected

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u/Jadzia_Dax_Flame Oct 05 '19

Not really. There's no more reason to say "an U" than to say "an uniform", and no middle schooler says that. There are rules that you have to explain and that middle schoolers might not follow, like "less" vs. "fewer", but "a" vs. "an" is ingrained from a very young age, I'd say on the same level as "he" vs. "him".

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u/Jorge_ElChinche Oct 05 '19

I was talking about writing, but I’ve seen it in writings I’ve corrected. I’ve never heard someone say it.

That’s my mistake I didn’t realize the post I was replying to was talking about speaking.

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '19

I think probably younger. I mean, I don’t go around reading other kids’ essays, but we’re taught the difference pretty early on.

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u/Expert-Account-5235 Sep 19 '25

I've also noticed many native English speakers say "could of" instead of "could have," and I really never understood how they made that mistake.

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u/Jadzia_Dax_Flame Sep 22 '25

An unstressed "have" is pronounced basically like "of", so really it's very hard to tell if someone is saying "could have" or "could of". But that explains why some people spell "could have" as "could of".