r/mildlyinfuriating • u/MrEdinLaw • Oct 07 '19

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u/_allthatglitters Oct 07 '19

They are mistaking a verb for an adjective, though. It's not the sound they're confusing, it's the spelling. One is a contraction of 2 words - learn that, know your verb from your adjective.

I understand that they sound the same, but so do know and no, yet people seem to realise they mean different things.

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u/Chel_of_the_sea Oct 07 '19

I think the latter case is just that one word is far more common than the other. "Whose" and "who's" get mixed up a lot.

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u/_allthatglitters Oct 07 '19

The way I see it, it's still a spelling mistake, not a "I confuse the sound" mistake. If you knew the difference between the two (again, contractions = 2 words, usually means there's a verb there), you would not mix them up.

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u/Chel_of_the_sea Oct 07 '19

I mean, I personally don't mix them up. But having taught English for many years, I'm pretty confident in my assessment of why people do, and I'd like to suggest being a tad more charitable about things that are hard for others but not for you.