True. But what do we gain in the meantime by quibbling over typographical errors? Did anyone really read this fellow's comment and go, 'wait, what? That doesn't make any sense. I can't make heads or tails of this person's sentence.'I have hard time believing so. And, if the situation is as the parent comment described --- 'this error is made consistently upstream' -- then we're looking at the collapse of loose/lose probably in the same timeframe as 'they're/their/there' and 'to/too/two'.
My main point is that language is not a static set of do's and don't's. It lives. If you need someone to clarify, ask them! But pointing your teacher's baton at them and saying, 'you're using your language wrong' is a waste of life.
But, then again, I'm sure this user will never "misspell" (an hilarious notion, given how recently spelling was standardized to start!) that word again, so perhaps my fervor has backfired.
> what do we gain in the meantime by quibbling over typographical errors? Did anyone really read this fellow's comment and go, 'wait, what? That doesn't make any sense.
Nothing. There wasn't really a reason for whoever pointed it out to do so. On one hand it's a common error, so it's very noticeable—but on the other, it's a common error, so people know what was really meant.
> And, if the situation is as the parent comment described --- 'this error is made consistently upstream' -- then we're looking at the collapse of loose/lose probably in the same timeframe as 'they're/their/there' and 'to/too/two'.
Yeah, that seems reasonable. One thing your other examples have going for them, though, is that if you use the incorrect spelling, it's (almost) always obvious from context which is correct, but I can imagine there are more situations that lose and loose could both be correct.
> My main point is that language is not a static set of do's and don't's. It lives. If you need someone to clarify, ask them! But pointing your teacher's baton at them and saying, 'you're using your language wrong' is a waste of life.
Agreed 100%
> so perhaps my fervor has backfired.
Meh. I see so many "they is always plural!" or "literally meaning figuratively is a recent error!" or "language never changes!" or other prescriptive garbage, that it's a nice change of pace to see someone a bit too far on the descriptive side :-)
True. But what do we gain in the meantime by quibbling over typographical errors? Did anyone really read this fellow's comment and go, 'wait, what? That doesn't make any sense. I can't make heads or tails of this person's sentence.'I have hard time believing so. And, if the situation is as the parent comment described --- 'this error is made consistently upstream' -- then we're looking at the collapse of loose/lose probably in the same timeframe as 'they're/their/there' and 'to/too/two'.
My main point is that language is not a static set of do's and don't's. It lives. If you need someone to clarify, ask them! But pointing your teacher's baton at them and saying, 'you're using your language wrong' is a waste of life.
But, then again, I'm sure this user will never "misspell" (an hilarious notion, given how recently spelling was standardized to start!) that word again, so perhaps my fervor has backfired.