Five lights don't work

[EFLImpudence]

A good example of grammatical correctness having nothing to do with factual correctness.

Cardiff is the capitol of Wales, is grammatically incorrect but factually correct, no one is misled.

Nope wrong. Was it ambiguous?

The correct sentence is "Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland".

 

[morqthana]

Which is how language changes. Google was a noun and became a verb.

No, but they are forgivable errors in most contexts, especially a diy forum.

I'm saying nobody says "Could I of a pint have beer?"

I don't object to language changing, or words becoming generic, or nouns becoming verbs, in situations like that.

I do object to people randomly deciding that an existing word, with a defined and universally accepted meaning, can suddenly, and validly, be given a different meaning which was already defined and universally accepted for another word. For example the decision that "of" now means the same as "have".

And "forgivable" does not mean the same as "uncorrectable".

As for "could I of a pint have beer", maybe nobody does say it, but you want to legitimise the use of "of" in place of "have". You want to class that as a valid change to the language, for English to evolve such that "of" and "have" come to have the same meaning, so why not the situation where "of" comes to mean the same as "have", and "have" comes to mean the same as "of"?

Bear in mind that in speech "pint of" is often contracted. It's not, AFAIK a valid contraction, there's no accepted way to write it, but people do say something which sounds like "pint've". In fact the more I think about it, the more I think its the way most people do say it in practice.

"I looked in the fridge earlier and we've only got one pint've milk left" is, IMO, more likely than a carefully articulated "I looked in the fridge earlier and we have only got one pint of milk left".

So as "could of" is as incorrect and meaningless as "pint have", it is not consistent to say that it's OK to use "could of" because the contraction of "could have" sounds like it could be a contraction of "could of", but it's not OK to use "pint have" because the contraction of "pint of" sounds like it could be a contraction of "pint have".

Maybe the observation should be that nobody yet says "Could I of a pint have beer?"

 

[blup]

Why is "could I of" random, but "could of" isn't?

Because it derives from the spoken "could've"

Can you provide a grammatically correct example of the use of "could of"? And if meaning is all that matters, how about a semantically correct one?

No one said it was grammatically correct, it's the response to its incorrectness that is incorrect. Nobody's been murdered.

 

[blup]

You were asked for the unambiguous mistake.

And if "Cardiff is the capitol of Wales" is grammatically incorrect it is also factually incorrect, as Wales does not have a Capitol.

It has since 1955.

 

[blup]

Nope wrong. Was it ambiguous?

You're confusing incorrectness with ambiguity

The correct sentence is "Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland".

That's never been disputed

 

[EFLImpudence]

You're confusing incorrectness with ambiguity

No. You keep changing the subject.

There was a mistake in the sentence I wrote and you could not tell what it was.
That surely is the very definition of ambiguous.

That's never been disputed

Yes, it has. You said the correct sentence was something else.

 

[morqthana]

Because it derives from the spoken "could've"

No one said it was grammatically correct, it's the response to its incorrectness that is incorrect. Nobody's been murdered.

How on earth can "could of" derive from the spoken "could've" when the spoken "could've" can only ever be a contraction of "could have" because "could of" does not exist?

And sorry, but no, no, never in a million years will it ever be incorrect to point out a mistake like that.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Exactly.

 

[morqthana]

And if "Cardiff is the capitol of Wales" is grammatically incorrect it is also factually incorrect, as Wales does not have a Capitol.

It has since 1955.

Err, no, it's had a Senedd building since 1999.

You know - I'm starting to wonder if you don't actually know what is a grammatical error and what is some other sort.

Cardiff is the capitol of Wales, is grammatically incorrect but factually correct, no one is misled.

What do you think is the grammatical error there?

 

[Old Salt]

Mine was done on purpose to see how much angst could be created by the simple apostrophe.

 

[blup]

Err, no, it's had a Senedd building since 1999.

You know - I'm starting to wonder if you don't actually know what is a grammatical error and what is some other sort.

You are bringing in American English and creating your own ambiguity, no one refers to Parliament as a capitol building. Capitol is a deliberate mis spelling of Capital to make the the point that a minor typo makes no difference to comprehension. Good spelling and grammar should be encouraged, but how is it not appropriate to use it as a blunt instrument on a diy forum? You and EFLI are retreating into pedantry. Stop digging.

 

[blup]

Mine was done on purpose to see how much angst could be created by the simple apostrophe.

You're not alone

 

[securespark]

Ennneeewaaay..,

Let's hope OP sorted out his wiring issues!

 

[morqthana]

Mine was done on purpose to see how much angst could be created by the simple apostrophe.

What about the spelling mistake?

 

[morqthana]

Capitol is a deliberate mis spelling of Capital

You said there was a grammatical error, not a spelling error. The grammatical error would have been "Cardiff is the capitol" rather than "Cardiff has the capitol". Which would be consistent with your persistent attitude to homophonal contractions.

"Cardiff is" and "Cardiff has" could both "Cardiff's". Presumably if someone heard that it would be OK for them to write, for example, "Cardiff is a long history".

I didn't expect you to be trying to mislead us by claiming the existence of a grammatical error when there wasn't one.

Did you do that deliberately?

Good spelling and grammar should be encouraged, but how is it not appropriate to use it as a blunt instrument on a diy forum? You and EFLI are retreating into pedantry. Stop digging.

could have

is hardly a "blunt instrument", is it.

And by levelling accusations of pedantry to try to deflect attention from your multiple mistakes makes it clear just who is doing the digging here.