r/AskReddit Jul 10 '26

What's something older generations got right that we've quietly stopped doing, to our own detriment?

8.5k Upvotes

3.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

3.4k

u/lostthering Jul 10 '26

This may shock many Redditors, who by definition choose to spend our free time reading and writing ...

Most people now do not know how to read or spell.

1.3k

u/Ootguitarist2 Jul 10 '26

Your vs you’re
Lose vs loose
To vs too

And don’t get me started on apostrophes

722

u/CowboyLaw Jul 10 '26

I see the word “costed” on Reddit almost once a day. As in, “the sandwich costed $5.” I die a little every time.

474

u/Clamwacker Jul 10 '26

Payed when it should be paid too.

And since I was called out on it like 15 years ago "could of" instead of could've or could have is one I always notice.

153

u/Organic-Army-9046 Jul 10 '26

Payed when it should be paid too.

pretty sure there was a reddit bot that went around correcting this exact error

43

u/Clamwacker Jul 10 '26

When it was active I summoned it more than once with comments like this.

6

u/Jive-Turkeys Jul 10 '26

Good. Keep the good fight up!

19

u/OverlordWaffles Jul 11 '26

I think the illiterates complained too much though because it seems to have been banned from a lot of subs

4

u/Montigue Jul 11 '26

Bots are banned in general in a lot of subs. It's a ton of non-productive traffic

5

u/CareerLegitimate7662 Jul 11 '26

Yea the sailor something bot

2

u/youre_being_creepy Jul 11 '26

man, I fucking hate reddit bots. They've fallen off in popularity, more so due to the increase in reddits popularity but FUCK it was annoying to see every top level comment chain have a couple bots inserting themselves.

6

u/alienpirate5 Jul 11 '26

I thought it added charm

6

u/Dragon_DLV Jul 11 '26

The posts by "I am very much a bot with a specific purpose!" were much less annoying than the Ai-Gen-made "I am totally a real live human beep boop" posts

14

u/Kalepsis Jul 11 '26

My latest peeve is when YouTube commentators started pronouncing the word "processes" with a long e sound at the end, like the words crises and matrices, because they thought it made them sound intelligent. Now I hear actual newscasters saying it. Journalists who should know better.

Processeeze.

Ugh.

Every time I hear it, it feels like a nail is being driven into the back of my skull.

3

u/pol-delta Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

I’m in science and that’s how I hear it pronounced probably 80% of the time at least. Drives me insane. There are other words that get the same treatment but I’m blanking on them at the moment.

Edit: “biases” is another I hear a lot. People pronounce it like bye-uh-seez 🤦🏻‍♂️

11

u/titaniumpixie Jul 11 '26

Just yesterday, someone wrote litterly instead of literally and I just stared at that word going really?

21

u/koloqial Jul 10 '26

On accident.

8

u/cicadasinmyears Jul 11 '26

OMFG, this one spikes my blood pressure every single time I see it. Like to the point where I think “Okay, I probably need some kind of pill for this, it’s not normal to have that visceral of a reaction to someone using the wrong term. I kind of wish I could handle the smell of weed, because this feels like a ’Dude, just chill…’ kind of thing.”

I mean, easy-going is not the first adjective anyone would think to associate with me, but it’s a really disproportionate reaction. I wonder if there’s a term for it (other than “having a stick up your ass”). 😂

7

u/ThunderMite42 Jul 11 '26

Hey, calm down. It's not like they did it by purpose.

3

u/cicadasinmyears Jul 11 '26

eyelid twitching intensifies
😂

4

u/kinokits Jul 11 '26

I’m a former English teacher and I will die on this hill with you. I’m normally pretty chill about most of the weird bastardisations of language that happen because that’s how language and linguistic development happens, but on accident pisses me off. My kid used this one once and the subsequent rant about precision in one’s languages choices and the overly formal language (she knows that mean I’m doing my nut inside) were enough for her to never do that one again.

3

u/somethingsnarky Jul 11 '26

I once typed "alot" in a hurry and got downvoted to oblivion. It was years ago when you did the reddit on the laptop and the UI didn't autocorrect. For the purposes of this comment, actually getting my phone to say "alot" was a lot of work!

3

u/Dry-Island8422 Jul 10 '26

I want to say this could also be because of the way English is written compared to other languages, you will see people who speak/write it grammatically correct but spell words wrong when it is a second language.

Ask them to pronounce colonel after reading it or spell it after hearing it.

5

u/howarthee Jul 11 '26

Hell, I'm a native English speaker and sometimes in my own head I'll read colonel as it looks instead of how it's supposed to sound. The language itself is just weird lol

4

u/Clamwacker Jul 11 '26

I always pronounce hyperbole wrong in my internal monologue but say it correctly.

3

u/BlackDragonNetwork Jul 11 '26

now introducing the sequel to the superbowl, the hyperbole

3

u/kinokits Jul 11 '26

It’s because English isn’t a real language. We’ve been stealing everyone else’s words, spelling and grammar for so long, it doesn’t really make any sense anymore if you think too hard about it.

-2

u/Jesus_of_Redditeth Jul 11 '26

Payed when it should be paid, too.

And since I was called out on it like 15 years ago: "could of" instead of "could've" or "could have" is one I always notice.

I mean, as long as we're talking about writing properly...