I had a moderator treating me like I’m a student, and when she realized we’re basically the same age she seriously cut back on the condescending tone. It was so funny to see the transparent reaction. 
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It’s really well- written. But I think some people who read it mistake the way Martin portrays “low” speak or “Martinisms” for correct English.
HAHA! I realized how much of a baby I was when I met 3 ajumma subbers in real life. Not old enough to be my mother but very in the range of older cousins/aunts!
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I hadn’t noticed this. However, while this sounds like “of,” it is actually “have”: It, formally, should read “could have” “would have,” or “should have.” When English is spoken, we create a contraction so that “have” sounds like “of.” It could correctly be written “could have” or with the contraction, “could’ve” with the choice dependent on whether the context is formal or casual.
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You aren’t wrong about that! 
You’re right. When editing subs or writing for certain audiences, “could’ve,” etc are fine. “Could of,” never! shudder
I agree with what you and some others have said about leniency and relaxing some of the Viki rules, but as someone who *has done editing and proofreading in professional settings, sometimes I see things on screen (or elsewhere) that might not bother me if someone was speaking to me in a casual setting, but hurts my heart to see it written down. It’s a kind of “What are we teaching our children?” moment. My own writing notwithstanding. xD
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Correct would be: could have, would have, should have. This is all past tense, as if reflecting on something incomplete. Such as, I should have paid attention is English class. You have a much better command of the English language than most natives. 
“Could of” is actually a hearing error. Could’ve, which while it may be correct isn’t actually used very much in writing, when spoken sounds like “could of”. Contractions are used in subs, most times, to shorten the length of the sentence.
I know this is very late, but I think this is the problem: “I mean, I sometimes hear Americans clearly saying “of” because it’s so common they don’t know it’s wrong”
People THINK they know what they’re hearing (see the contraction…that subbers sometimes mistake for “their” or “there”). I promise you that the person you were replying to was correct and when you “think” you’re hearing an American speaker say “could of” you’re actually hearing “could’ve”. Spoken, “could’ve” IS (as in it is pronounced) “could of”. That’s why people think that’s what is being said. Even native speakers who haven’t seen it written will write “could of” as “could’ve” is usually spoken but not written.
It is a grammar issue, sure, but part of it is that the person writing doesn’t really even know how to spell what was just said. That’s the real issue, and it partially explains why we have gone away from writing the contraction. The people speaking don’t realize that what they said was correct, but that it’s just spelled “could’ve”. It especially sounds like “could OF” when people emphasize the second syllable instead of the first syllable, which is common in a lot of areas.
If you type in “could’ve” in google (you can use google translate simply for the pronunciation) you’ll hear “could of,” but with the emphasis like this: “COULD of”. Depending on the sentence, “COULD of” gives a different connotation than “could OF.” Depending on the audience, you wouldn’t say “could OF,” you’d say “COULD of.” Those are the little nuances about languages that are hard to pick up. I’d say keep in mind that the U.S. is multiple times larger than most other countries. Word use and word choice (not the same thing) will be different wherever you go. Some countries are smaller than our states…even within our states there’s a difference in word choice and use just like in other countries. If people aren’t well traveled within the U.S. with LOTS of interaction with the locals in that area, they will assume that how they pronounce or use a word is the only way in American English, which is not necessarily the case even in standard American English.
One hint is that most people who learn English as a second language aren’t learning “American English”. There is a difference. This is similar to how standard Spanish is Spain is different from standard Spanish in Mexico. Then, you have to add on the dialects and differences in every day speech and written language. A lot of times, native speakers here will pick up on a certain dialect (or even pronunciation) and can tell where the family originated…just like you’d have in any other country.
You can also listen to the pronunciation of “could’ve” in Merriam-Webster’s learner’s dictionary website here: http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/could’ve
I can promise, though, that if you’re bold enough to ask a native American English speaking person (who has native American English speaking parents and grandparents and is saying/writing something that you don’t think is standard) if he or she speaking or writing standard American English, more than 9/10 times that person will even say “no” himself. Most of the time, it’s not that they don’t understand that what they’re using isn’t standard American English. I think one of the key cultural differences is that the use of non-standard American English is, for the most part, not frowned upon in many situations here in the U.S. Use of slang is a slightly different story.
A lot of that has to do with why the non-standard versions were even used in the first place (no, laziness is not the #1 reason)–this is hard to understand for anyone coming from a mostly homogeneous society (or town/region), so I won’t elaborate.
Again, though, “could’ve” being spoken as “could of” IS standard.
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All American people I’ve talked to and asked about agree that “could of” is a very common mistake. It’s not like most of us haven’t heard thousands of hours of American dialogue. I don’t need to be especially bold to do it, as you say there are millions of you and very easy to find.
Especially when the person says “could’ve” and the transcriber writes “could of”, obviously the transcriber wasn’t paying much attention at school.
P.S. I’m tempted to ask what do you mean by “native American English” but I’ll just drop it.
Isn’t she referring to the language of those whom in older, non-politically correct times, we used to call “Red Indians”? Like, the Sioux, Cherokee etc?
And their English, if we believe Hollywood movies, would be “Me Purple Skunk likes pale-faced sqaw Glykeria”? (I do think that nowadays it would be nearer to standard A.E., and less interesting).
Of course, technically the term should also include Aztecs and Mayas, but - I don’t know why - usually when we hear of Native Americans we immediately visualize Pocahontas.
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I’ll try to be fair and say that being in a place for centuries kinda makes you a native.
But that doesn’t mean you qualify as a “correct” speaker of the native language by default.
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Fascinating. arched brows So you actually discount the American who has a “mere four centuries” by your count of English somehow in their background as somehow inferior? To whom?
For one thing, the MAJORITY of Americans came from the ORIGIN of the English language: ENGLAND. You’re short on your ESTIMATE!
Including some folks who were absolutely brilliant men and women who founded the country - lawyers, inventors, statesmen, generals…!
So, since I am a member and PRODUCT of that somehow surprisingly-inferior American nation, I suppose you will not be calling on my services as an editor in my own mater lingua any time soon.
And by the way, part of my family actually arrived on the Mayflower - and yes, were Presidents. Many, including my near relatives like my father, are gifted scholars, with doctorates, and teaching certificates, in fields ranging from history, English language and mathematics. Both my grandmothers and great-grandmothers taught as well. My family on the English side has a very long tradition stretching back many hundreds of years of educating their WOMEN.
To believe that native speakers of a language are inept overall is well, nothing sort of NAIVE.
The Present Author waves her hands, whiffs three sonnet-line daggers into the dart board behind the back into the twenty ring, then walks cheerfully through the wall of utterly-foolish verbiage that seems to melt from bricks to vapor in a nanosecond…*POOF!
Oh, I’m sorry, isn’t your proud achievement that you’re a melting pot? Only WASPs need apply?
Your apology for your rude remark is accepted, Thank you Oh wait, you didn’t mean that, did you? To apologize… yet an apology would also be a form of explanation. Perhaps you mean to explain yourself - or at any rate, your remark?
I happen to have other races included in my heritage, not that it is any of your business. Do you mean to insult my country - or me personally? Somehow it’s not entirely clear…
Perhaps your apology should be edited to be well, less “waspish”?
But then, that would be an excellent use of.…English. as well as ….editing.
Crouching Dieter, Hidden Donut ….walks through another tissue-thin argument and exits, stage left.
Why would I apologize? This thread is for “common mistakes replicated in English”, not for your ego.
Ladies. Please. I’m sorry while trying to add humor,I inadvertently added fuel to some underlying hostility. We are truly digressing from the main topic of this thread. Let’s try to be civil shall we? Aren’t we all here at viki because we believe to some extent, entertainment without borders? An entertainment melting pot?
Glykeria – you got my point exactly!!! That a native speaker is not by default a “correct” speaker. And I meant nothing more nor nothing less than that. You started the thread with the misuse of “of” when “'ve” is what is called for in the examples you cited. And unfortunately, that error is not caught 100% in the editing process. There are a few others – “anyways” is not correct either, and people often add an apositrophe s to a pronoun to signify possession. For belonging to you, “your’s” rather than just plain “your.” And these errors are made not necessarily in subtitles but in compositions seen by school teachers all the time, made by native speakers.
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If I may add, not many people seem to remember when to hyphenate compound modifiers.(two words that work together to function like one adjective). When you connect words with the hyphen, you make it clear to readers that the words work together as a unit of meaning.
ex.rock-hard cake, world-famous composer, world-renowned surgeon,
Generally, you need the hyphen only if the two words are functioning together as an adjective before the noun they’re describing. If the noun comes first, leave the hyphen out.
It’s impossible to eat this cake because it is rock hard.
You also don’t need a hyphen when your modifier is made up of an adverb and an adjective.
Incorrect: Do you expect me to believe this clearly-impossible story?
Correct: Do you expect me to believe this clearly impossible story?
Also, very commonly, they forget to hyphen age(ex. 20-year-old) and numbers a 10-minute speech
I’ve added some hyphen rules to my own English Guidelines (very much inspired from cgwm808’s document, which I expanded).
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/category/handbook/
You can add grammarly to your browser, to check stuff you write.
https://www.grammarly.com/
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[quote=“glykeria, post:55, topic:10951”]
being in a place for centuries kinda makes you a native. But that doesn’t mean you qualify as a “correct” speaker of the native language by default.[/quote]
Natives are not necessarily proficient in their language
Even a true native, whose family has been for millennia in a certain country, may not speak or write correctly. If they belong to an uneducated family, if they don’t read books, if they did not pay attention at school, if they belong to the computer games generation…
When working as a journalist, at some point I was responsible for reading and dealing with readers’ letters. (My mother had a page where she gave advice to readers on various matters and I was the one to do the job behind the scenes). I was appalled at the level of ignorance those - presumably native - people had of their own language. Especially the young ones. You immediately saw the difference between the younger and the 35+.
Even the appearance of those letters: few or no accents, wrong punctuation, sometimes no margins, written with a red or light blue pen, mechanical unjoined handwriting which mimicked printed fonts…
I’m pretty sure that it happens in most countries.
From 1998 till now I’ve been reading internet comments by native English speakers on various fora, groups, youtube, disqus etc, and it seems that writing correctly is very low in people’s list of priorities.
Why?
The level of education is not what it was
(you can skip this rant if you like and go to the next point)
My children and I went to the very same school (Athens Italian School), and I could witness first-hand the abysmal difference in the quality of teaching and in the expected proficiency.
For school assignments, most of the students copy pasted chunks of text from the web hardly reading it, forget about understanding or changing it. Most of them spent class time on their cellphones and, on coming home, turned on their PC screen and started to play. OK, not everyone (in every class there was someone who got top grades by studying hard), but a shocking majority.
With no real consequences. Because nowadays it is considered “bad form” for teachers to make you repeat the class, and parents protest very vehemently if it happens. For this to happen, a student has to really really show he doesn’t care a hoot and do strictly nothing all year. In my times you could be made to repeat the class even in elementary school. Now the worst that can happen is that they are made to repeat the exam in September for certain subjects, and in September teachers are mostly lenient, even if the student just took the time to study for the last ten days of August. It’s very rare that someone really doesn’t make it. With the result that more ignorant and irresponsible students go on to the next class, not even having the basics, thus understanding even less of the new stuff, which of course discourages them even further from making an effort.
I also saw the difference in the Cambridge English exams, the Lower (now FC) and Proficiency, as well in the Sorbonne exams. It has become so shockingly easy nowadays! Presumably not to discourage people and get more applicants thus more money.
In my time, you actually had to write. A lot. Now it’s mostly multiple-choice questions, you just have to tick a box. Instead of studying a whole literary movement with focus on a certain author or group of authors, with lots of reference books “about” them included, nowadays you only have to read ONE single book, with no context. And, in Cambridge Proficiency, you don’t even have to read the book. There are two questions, one about the book and one about other things, and you can choose one or the other.
Let me not even touch the state of Italian and Greek universities, where half of the time is spent on protests, strikes (either of students or professors) and… how do you call them in English, “takeovers”? When they occupy the building and no lessons can be held, and inside the building there are sex and booze orgies alternating with political meetings and burning of furniture bought with taxpayers’ money?
Those are the people to whom tomorrow we will entrust our health and legal matters, the safety of our buildings, the running of our country.
Viki teams
Knowing all this, still - silly me - I was surprised by seeing, here at viki, how little people know their own language. I’m speaking of the Greek and Italian teams, which are made of “real” Greeks and “real” Italians, born there, of native parents and grandparents, who went to local schools.
English teams are much less homogeneous, members can be from anywhere in the world. Including some who may technically be ‘natives’ because they were born and raised in an English-speaking country (such as the U.S.A.) but in reality second- or third-generation immigrants whose parents’ English is questionable. Thus they never heard proper English at home while growing up and well, at school, their classmates could very well have been of the same type of background, or “real natives” but of uneducated parents, so…
My point is…
Unsurprisingly, some non-native English speakers can have a better level than natives, because they actually studied the language diligently and enthusiastically for many years, not taking their knowledge for granted.
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