Leaving off the n't

[chipperMDW]

I can never understand why people sometimes write or type a word that was clearly intended to be a contraction like "didn't" or "couldn't," but completely leave off the "n't."

Examples:
[ul]
[li]I would want to be in that mess.[/li]
[li]I waited for hours but he did show up.[/li]
[li]I was late because I could find my car keys.[/li]
[/ul]


Any idea what this behavior is a symptom of?

Are these people who have never read a book and are incorrectly imitating what they hear people saying?

Is there some language (or family of languages) whose native speakers have a predisposition for making these types of mistakes when they learn English?

 

[SantaMufasa]

Frankly, Chipper, I haven't encountered the behaviour of which you speak. Since such writing style conveys just the opposite meaning of the writer's intention, I would hope (and imagine) that readers bring this to the writer's attention. I know that I would.


Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)

http://www.dasages.com

Do you use Oracle and live or work in Utah, USA?
Then click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips.

 

[chipperMDW]

Here's a Tek-Tips thread with a post that may be an example (and which prompted me to start this thread): thread116-1032137

I did point out the poster's mistake.


I suppose it's a fairly uncommon mistake, but I feel like I've been seeing it more frequently lately. It usually shows up in forums, e-mail, handwritten notes, and other places where people write/type quickly and casually. Maybe that's the sign of a thinko...

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

a won't take the pointer value of b in release mode, but it dose so in debug mode why is that?

My project is a bit more complicated than this example given here. But it's essens is the same an assignemnt of pointer variables of the same type should just work right?


Thanx for any help explaining why this can happen...

I thought I was seeing unbelivable things when the debugger showed me it just stepping throuw ...

Sometimes it's just laziness, other times it's partial illiteracy & other times yet it can be that the poster is trying to communicate in a language which is not his/her native tongue. Judging from the above & by the name, I would assume that the latter is the case.

& all the best.

 

[XwBrendanXw]

There's this guy on another forum I'm on, who CAN'T write a single post without making weird typo's like that. Sometimes he even leaves out whole words! It's quite annoying, really.

 

[SilentAiche]

chipperMDW,

In what region have you encountered those who don't use the 'nt? I have not encountered that one.

Brendan - as one with a bad habit of leaving out words (especially small ones), I really can't explain it. It's like when you read a sentence your mind sees the word (or assumes?) even though it isn't there. I just finished a post where, before editing, "keeping up with" came out as "keeping with." BTW - it's annoying to the offender, too!

However, most of the worst grammatical errors I've seen here seem to be, as CBL noted, from folks communicating in a non-native language.

Tim

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[SantaMufasa]

Keep in mind that articles ('a','an','the') do not exist in many languages. Although this doesn't account for the missing 'up' in "keeping...with", it may account for the ESL nature of many of our posts.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)

http://www.dasages.com

Do you use Oracle and live or work in Utah, USA?
Then click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips.

 

[chipperMDW]

in what region have you encountered those who don't use the 'nt?

Well, the times I've seen it written in person have been in Texas, USA.

Most of my sightings have been on the Web, though, so... they could have been from anywhere.

 

[SilentAiche]

chipperMDW,

Most folks would hate to confess this, but the following

I have not encountered that one.

started out as [blue]"I have encountered that one."[/blue]


I hate little words... is it typing too fast, or monitor related, or what? Arrggh!

Tim


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[chipperMDW]

Heh heh.

Well, the brain does apparently treat function words differently from other words. Instead of carrying meaning themselves, they're just used to "shape" the meaning of a sentence.


Do you tend to lose function words more often than "real" words?

Maybe dropping the "n't" is just the loss of a function morpheme.

 

[strongm]

Quite so. E.g. count how many times F appears in the following (be fair, just go through once to start with):

Finished files are the result
of years of scientific study
combined with the experience
of years...

 

[SilentAiche]

chipperMDW,

That's a good point, and probably true in my case.

It seems like the brain, from whence the sentence came, already knows what was intended to be said, and therefore "sees" all the words. Who knows.

Another viable culprit is simply being in too big a hurry to write right.

Tim

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[Onyxpurr]

Unfortunately, that which makes us a smarter species can also be our weakness.

It's in our nature to 'fill in the picture'. In other words, we see a tree, rather than its leaves and branches.

Just another reason why it's so important to have a designated proofreader.

I don't mind the occasional typo, but if it changes the entire meaning of the sentence, and obviously so, it drives me nuts.

Also posting to these kind of forums makes me nervous that my post is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. lol

 

[chipperMDW]

I found another example from a Tek-Tips thread that's probably going to get deleted, so I'll quote it here:

hello I want to color an element of a listbox in visual c++ but I was able to.

 

[SilentAiche]

strongm,

Finished files are the result
of years of scientific study
combined with the experience
of years...

I didn't respond this time because I utterly flunked a challenge o[red]f[/red] a similar nature a few years ago.

Tim




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[ESquared]

This is quite annoying, too:

typo's

Hey, we all have to have something to complain about. Thats why I made perposeful mistakes in this sentense, so yet an other person could purchance complaign about misteaks while making yet evenmore of them.

 

[tsdragon]

The type of usage in "typo's" is similar to "isn't". It is using an apostrophe to indicate the omission of one or more letters. It's very common.


Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[SantaMufasa]

...or the incredibly annoying mis-use of "who's" versus "whose":

Who's life is it anyway?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)

http://www.dasages.com

Do you use Oracle and live or work in Utah, USA?
Then click here to join Utah Oracle Users Group on Tek-Tips.

 

[ESquared]

Spelling they're as there is very common, too. That doesn't mean it's right or sensible.

Anyway, typo is indeed an abbreviation, but it is used as a standalone word. it doesn't need an apostrophe to become plural. I hardly think the writer had in mind "typographical errors" when he used that apostrophe! He just pluralized typo.

 

[SilentAiche]

So what is the correct plural of "typo"? I usually write it as [red]typo's[/red].

By the same (?) token, how does one write about decades, such as the 70's, 80's, etc.?

Tim





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