spellings on EBAY

[woodbury22uk]

Going back to the original issue of Ebay, the spelling mistakes can be the source of bargains. The misspellings result in items not showing up in correctly spelled simple searches. I am not much of Ebay searcher but recently we have has "virgon" and "pendalino" in the Virgin Pendolino listings.

[njee20]

I got a DCC fitted Voyager just listed as "N Gauge" recently.

[monkey_brains]

Seen recently on there - a Graham Fetish Class 08

[Safety Engineer]

Its not only spellings, some translations suffer as well, notice seen in the grounds of Taipei water works (Taiwan) "Dangerous snacks inhabit this area" (vision of a packet of Cheese and Onion Chrisps jumping out of the long Grass perhaps) !

Martin

[Zogbert Splod]

Their ar bargings too be had on eebay coz of spooling mitsakes tho.
www.fatfingers.com is worth a look.  It will pull up a lot of dreck but sometimes a real gem.

[Highland Handlebar]

I think my favourite spelling was a graham Farage  horse box

[TrevL]

I have a saved search for " N Guage", prooving quite fruitful.

[SheldonC]

The problem with the 'of' versus 'have' thing is at some point folks started using a contraction of 'should have' or 'would have' and they became 'should've' and 'would've'. This is accepted now but when they are spoken they sound like 'should of' and 'would of' hence the usage.

Another of my pet hates is the use of 'that' when it's completely unnecessary. As an example, in the first sentence above I could have typed.....
"The problem with the 'of' versus 'have' thing is that at some point..................."
It would have been a pointless insertion of 'that' as the sentence carries the meaning perfectly well without it. For those who read a lot (and I certainly do) you may find you now notice all the 'thats' and realise the average paperback could have been (or could've been) several pages shorter!

I think "Thumb Texting" is to blame for a lot of the mis-spellings (& lack of hyphens), but it is also influencing pronunciation - "create" is now pronounced "crate" (or "cr8"), and, as you point out, would've is usually pronounced "would of", as it is often spelled.  I hadn't noticed the use of "So..." to begin an answer to a question until Rex Kennedy pointed it out in one of his editorials some years ago; now, it grates on me in just about every interview on TV.

[SheldonC]

It's definitely not just eBay, I agree that most people's standard of written Inglish is very pore.

Loosing. Should of. You're/your or there/their/they're confusion. Hangable offences!

Unfortunately, I often find I've typed "you" instead of "your" (but definitely nor "you're"), but that's down to my keyboard skills & incipient arthritis.  Unfortunately, I suspect most of the other incidences I see are not attributable to the same causes.

[SheldonC]

Totally agree with the above. Why people can not write "They're having their tea over there" and know the difference between the spellings, is beyond me!  Whilst I do abbreviate words, e.g. isn't, I usually only do it when writing informally, like wot I do on 'ere  . If I am writing something 'proper' I like to write the words out correctly. Down to my upbringing I suppose and what I like to think of as being educated correctly. So are we blaming teaching standards these days? But that is another topic. 

Having worked in an environment where the over-50s were very much in the minority, I can say with a degree of confidence that educational standards have certainly changed, not for the better.  I suspect it has been the result of policy changes instigated by trendy pedagogues, psychologists and others who train the teachers.  The existence of such expressions as "speak as you read" would tend to illustrate this point. 
Oh, and as a Parthian shot, why has "of" become the preposition of choice in expressions such as "bored of"?  Others do seem to crop up with alarming frequency.

[SheldonC]

Variety being the spice of life, I have purchased items which are N guage, N gouge, and N gorge and many break second couches

150 years ago or so, "break" was the accepted spelling.  Language changes.  It just doesn't always change for the better.

[SheldonC]

Ad's - that well known punctuation mark, the grocers' apostrophe.

Please stop, before I split my sides with laughter.

[The Q]

Arghhh NO the The Loch Ness Monster... Though I don't remember him ever reaching Inbhir Nis High School. I do remember some of the teachers there...

[stevewalker]

Variety being the spice of life, I have purchased items which are N guage, N gouge, and N gorge and many break second couches

150 years ago or so, "break" was the accepted spelling.  Language changes.  It just doesn't always change for the better.

That is one that drives me mad - particularly when it appears in newspapers (where they should know better) or motoring related forums (where you'd hope people are interested enough in the subject to know the correct spelling).

[bob lawrence]

Misspelling I can sometimes forgive but never the Malapropism of words. I suspect misspelling occurs due to the use of predictive text, but there again so may Malapropism.
You may look no further than this forum for examples of Malapropism especially.