No matter how many times you go through what you've written, you can still miss the mistakes you've made. Whether there are cracks in your understanding of the language, or your eyes are simply playing a trick on you, they might find a way to slip into the final draft.
The subreddit r/IhadAstroke is a perfect example of how even minor errors can turn simple phrases into confusing or hilarious gibberish. As the name suggests, the stuff that gets featured here is so bad that there must have been something seriously wrong with the author while they were typing!
#1 I Found This On Pintrest ?
Image credits: B4z1ng
#2 My Brother, Ladies And Gentlemen
Image credits: mertis0420
According to the sister and brother duo Kathy Petras and Ross Petras, who co-authored the book 'You're Saying It Wrong: A Pronunciation Guide to the 150 Most Commonly Mispronounced Words and Their Tangled Histories of Misuse,' 11 of the most common grammar mistakes the word experts hear are:
- apostrophes (Wrong: We need to get our sale’s numbers up. Right: We need to get our sales numbers up.)
- Everyday/every day (Wrong: He starts work everyday at 8 a.m. Right: He starts work every day at 8 a.m.)
- I/me (Wrong: The marketing manager told Riley and I to talk with her. Right: The marketing manager told Riley and me to talk with her.)
- its/it's (Wrong: The company just celebrated it’s eighth year since it went public. Right: The company just celebrated its eighth year since it went public.)
- less/fewer (Wrong: Less than 50 people showed up for the presentation. Right: Fewer than 50 people showed up for the presentation.)
- lie/lay (Wrong: I could just lay down and go to sleep. Right: I could just lie down and go to sleep.)
- lose/loose (Wrong: If we stay on this track, we can’t loose. Right: If we stay on this track, we can’t lose.)
- that/who (Wrong: The people that reach their sales target will get a reward. Right: The people who reach their sales target will get a reward.)
- then/than (Wrong: That presentation was better then the first one. Right: That presentation was better than the first one.)
- there/their/they're (Wrong: There going to they’re office over their. Right: They’re going to their office over there.)
- your/you’re (Wrong: Your my favorite supervisor. Right: You’re my favorite supervisor.)
#3 Dieing I Brearhn't
Image credits: Marcel_28
#4 He Day
Image credits: reddit.com
#5 I Custom Ordered This Legend Of A Shirt And I Couldn’t Be Happier
Image credits: OneGold7
But your reaction to these picture can tell you something about your own nature, too. Linguistics experts from the University of Michigan found that extroverted people are likely to overlook typos and grammatical errors that would cause introverted people to judge the person who makes such errors more negatively.
The researchers invited 83 participants and asked them all to read email responses to an ad for a housemate, which either contained no errors or had been altered to include typos (e.g. "teh" instead of "the") or grammatical mix-ups, such as too/to or it's/its.
#6 Cant Are Gona Do?
Image credits: Biccboiamin
#7 Yeah So I Have An Entire Album In My Phone Dedicated To My Mum’s Terrible Texting
Image credits: reddit.com
#8 My Dad Did This To Me A While Ago Lmao
Image credits: Angelrosecluvdii
#9 Honestly Read This For The 5th Time And It Still Don't Make Sense LOL
Image credits: dollfags
Those 83 people then judged the person who'd written the email based on their perceived intelligence, friendliness, and other attributes, such as how good they would be as housemates.
At the end of the experiment, they were also asked whether or not they'd spotted any grammatical errors or typos in the emails, and, if so, how much it had bothered them.
#10 I Know How To Say This Correctly I Just Don’t Want To
Image credits: Toaster-mann
#11 Burger Kink LOL
Image credits: GlitchyBroom79
#12 Mothor Is Srtoking
Image credits: Microwaved_Hampster
The researchers then asked the participants to complete a Big Five personality assessment, which determines where they are on a scale of openness, agreeableness, extraversion/introversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness, as well as answer additional questions about their age, background, and attitude towards language.
#13 My Aunt Texted Me... So Confused
Image credits: Jaded-Ad6823
#14 Satan Is Pretty Close I Guess
Image credits: mamago21
#15 Where Do Babies Come From?
Image credits: hurtfulscaffold47
#16 To Be Fair English Is Not Their First Language
Image credits: chimpmoment
Overall, everybody rated the fictional housemate applicants with typos and grammatical errors in their emails as worse than those with perfect spelling, but certain personality types judged the typo-riddled applicants harsher than others.
For instance, extroverts were generally much more likely to overlook their mistakes, whereas introverts were more likely to judge the applicants negatively because of them.
#17 Indeed
Image credits: DDV_Gaming
#18 Found This In A Youtube Video. Thought It Would Fit Here
Image credits: Syncroned
#19 Shongles
Image credits: Biggymemes
#20 Found On R/Me_irl
Image credits: rvexo
People who tested as being more conscientious but less open were more sensitive to typos, while those with less agreeable personalities got more upset by grammatical errors.
"Perhaps because less agreeable people are less tolerant of deviations from convention," the research team said.
#21 Girls Is Can The Therefore Change Is World Brave
Image credits: BuffMonke
#22 If Anyone Knows What This Says Pls Say It
Image credits: shadedstyle76
#23 I'm Eating Babies
Image credits: WeebyIntrovert
Interestingly, how neurotic someone didn't really affect how they interpreted mistakes.
Yes, the sample size wasn't the biggest and we need to take the results with a grain of salt. However, the results couldn't be explained by people's age or education, which suggests that personality traits were actually playing a role.
And if you want to continue playing the grammar police officer, fire up our first publication on r/IhadAstroke! It also has plenty of inexcusable crimes.
#24 My Amazon Customer Support
Image credits: yoloman0805
#25 Our Local Gym Motivational Quote
Image credits: amit230_
#26 I Managed To Google These Things While I Was High. ?
Image credits: Imaginary-Day5493
#27 A Very Lucky Fortune
Image credits: reddit.com
#28 Not Sure What They Were Trying To Do Here
Image credits: reddit.com
#29 We Take For Open Are Out
Image credits: ThisAwkwardPotato
#30 My Mother At 2 In The Morning
Image credits: Naayyrr
#31 Would You Like To Try That Again, Bud?
Image credits: jdaltzz2383
#32 The Iffle Tower
Image credits: killmetwice1234
#33 Is That A Warning ?
Image credits: Dangerous_Sundae_352
#34 Supre Bol\
Image credits: Coolio-Mc-Xerto
#35 “Hey, Want Some Drugs?” “P I Z Z A” “Will You Marry Me?” “Omg Yes!” “No!!!!!!”
Image credits: definitelynot_foxy
#36 A Congressional Candidate Has A Stroke On Twitter
Image credits: The_punchy77
#37 I ‘Member
Image credits: MagicWUball
#38 Eee
Image credits: moonlitcat2022
#39 My Local Pub. The Stroke Is Strong With This One
Image credits: Teooooooo
#40 KFC
Image credits: bruh_bruh_bruh_bruh0
#41 Can’t Tell If He Tried To Say “Ur Mum” Or “Them”
Image credits: reddit.com
#42 We Love Women
Image credits: reddit.com
#43 Try To Read It
Image credits: teodafik
#44 Foot Cralp
Image credits: DecapitatorOfChicken
#45 I Think My Friend Might Have Gone Through A Stroke
Image credits: Ksiisaverybigfatneek
#46 What?
Image credits: CapitanRecs
#47 When Is He Getting Therapy? Also Not Sure If Its Allowed Of That " ???? " Part
Image credits: MarceloRBLX
#48 Trans Trans Are Trans Trans
Image credits: rese_nese_
#49 ??????
Image credits: reddit.com
#50 Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V
Image credits: Rashtrapateen