The bigger problem seems to be in the use of an apostrophe to make a word plural, for example: Apple's are $1 per pound.  This seems to have become common usage.  

People also seem to struggle with "its" versus "it's"...

Whatever happened to the possessive apostrophe in the English language.
a. That is Franks' automobile.

Nowadays it always seems to be written,
b. That is Frank's automobile.

a. Would be the Franks family automobile. (plural)

b. Would be an automobile belonging to Frank. (singular)

Many times these days people don't distinguish...or don't know how.  But, what can you expect with MS Word auto-correcting everything?

People have begun to forget how to spell.

As I understand it, the US used the "ou" in words like labor (labour) and color (colour) until the 1930's.  Don't know why the spellings were changed, though.

Don't forget...

it's versus its

it's = it is

its = possessive tense of it

Quote from: TGUSA on September 24, 2011, 02:36:06 PM

Whatever happened to the possessive apostrophe in the English language.
a. That is Franks' automobile.

Nowadays it always seems to be written,
b. That is Frank's automobile.

a. Would be the Franks family automobile. (plural)

b. Would be an automobile belonging to Frank. (singular)

Many times these days people don't distinguish...or don't know how.  But, what can you expect with MS Word auto-correcting everything?

People have begun to forget how to spell.

Never mind.

Here's something that happens here all the time, and it DRIVES ME INSANE. Im not sure if this happens in America, but here, its very common.

"If I'd had the money, I would've bought it". When people speak those words (or similar), it sounds like just like that. Would've. However, when they type it or write it, they type it or write it like this:

"If I'd had the money, I would of bought it".

I dont know if its ignorance, a bad education or laziness, but a hell of a lot of people here think 'would've' is the shortened version of 'would of', rather than 'would have'.

Something else that gets on my titt1es here is when people say 'I bought it off my friend', instead of 'I bought it from my friend', or even worse, 'I brought it off my friend'

But for me, the worst Englishism (or the one that drives me insane most of all) is what I call 'turnarounditis'. Its some sort of physical compulsion people experience before they do anything.

"I told my friend he was ugly and he turned around and punched me in the face". "I called the bank to find out my balance and the girl turned around and said I'm £15.51 in credit". "I confronted my boyfriend about whether he'd shagged the girl next door and he turned around and denied it".

Before doing anything, a lot of English people actually do a 360 degree turn. They are the European version of the Whirling Dervish.

Yes, Im sure thats probably what it is. It drives me nuts though.

The other thing I've never understood is when someone in America is 'fixing dinner'. Why is it being fixed? Whats wrong with it? Is it broken?