Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/20/twitterbot-simply-retweets-peo.html
…
5 Likes
When confronted with that error (or those of similar ilk) my response is always “Well? What about my an idiot?”
12 Likes
Up next, a bot that retweets all the “their stupid” tweets.
10 Likes
Interesting how prolific it’s becoming. I know this is a horrible dystopia that grammarians are trying to guard us all against, but I wonder if in 50 years “your” meaning “you are” will be even more common in informal writing, if not dominant / “correct” (cue Idiocracy meme). Another thought: how ambiguous is the meaning when used in a sentence (“your” replacing “you’re”)? Examples?
2 Likes
Indeed, even “there”, “their” and “they’re” can normally be correctly deduced from their context. I’m sure English will eventually evolve in to something as unrecognisable as Old English is to us.
2 Likes
18 Likes
I predict ur will replace you’re and yur will replace your. so the spacetweets of the cyberfuture will be “iz ur not yur therefore thou art to me as a horse’s arse”
some things go the other way, tho.
7 Likes
OK: interesting. So how often do we see this in the wild, or is this just another clever grammarian construction? 
In other words, how often do we see “knowing your /noun adjunct/” being replaced by “knowing you’re /noun adjunct/” used in real language (such that it really is ambiguous)? Is this common enough to justify maintaining the difference between “your” and “you’re”?
1 Like
I think I’ve told this anecdote before, but I’ve had to spend about a year living in an English-speaking country before my brain finally realized that “you’re” and “your” really are pronounced the same. Before that, I never made that mistake, then it suddenly started happening when I wasn’t paying attention.
The English-language nonsense that currently annoys me the most is the word “bicep”. THIS WORD HAS NO RIGHT TO EXIST. The word is biceps. Biceps is the singular. With the s. Those people who are proud that their bicep is so big and strong… well, their idiots.
7 Likes
Probably not, if you’re being ruthless.
1 Like
OH DEAR GOD WILL IT NEVER END? …
8 Likes
Thank you for pointing that out. You deserve a kudo.
3 Likes
Ah, reminds me of the sadly inactive Stealth Mountain.
3 Likes
#punchingDown
I find this amusing, but it would never cut the mustard with the #botAlly crowd
1 Like
Don’t you mean “your being ruthless”? 
“Your being ruthless is what shows that your being ruthless”.
1 Like
I’ll just leave this here.
I guess it depends on context, though. Did the person write,
Your an idiot, we have to make Trump Prez bc Muslims taking over are country…i worry about the future alot because libtards like u are ruining everthing
or is it
Your an idiot if you think there’s no more racism.
Because in the latter, I see that common grammar mistake used way too often as a “gotcha” to ignore everything else they have to say. And in the latter, I think this might apply:
Other than that, I’m guessing that 98% of the time, it’s great for the lulz.
1 Like
They could retweet eachother ad infinitum and create a singularity.
3 Likes
One that I didn’t see 10 years ago but spot regularly and constantly now is the swapping of “then” and “than”. I get how the homophonic similarity of “They’re” “There” and “Their” or “You’re” and “Your” leads to confusion… but then and than should sound different if the person has accurate and articulate pronunciation. I wondered if perhaps it was a typo, but A and E are far enough apart on a standard QWERTY keyboard that doesn’t seem to be valid. I think it’s simply people speaking and not knowing what the actual words coming out of their mouths are.
Similar to “Should of”… really? How does that make sense if you understand English and actually write/read?
2 Likes
my preferred replies would be loosers, maroons, and stoopid. i also love this hillary gif.
1 Like
One that stuck out for me during the last major financial crisis was people swapping “opps” for “oops”.
I can’t even.
