Would Of

This is one of those posts lamenting the state of language usage, in this case English. I don’t know why this popped into my head the other night, but it bothered me enough to write about it. Look, I don’t claim to be perfect in grammar, word usage, or even spelling. I do, however, have plenty of pet peeves. Welcome to my world.

One that bothers me more than it should is when people use the phrase “would of.” This shows up in memes where the author maybe doesn’t know any better. For example, “If I would of known then what I know now…” No, what you meant to say was, “If I would’ve known then…” Would’ve is a contraction for “would have” and whoever uses the phrase “would of” is guilty of translating the spoken word incorrectly into the written form. People should know better, dammit.