[protomyth]

Would Google of closed the AdWord account of a third-party over this?

[edit: for the down voter, if they would for a 3rd party, they should for themselves and remove the Ad. If they wouldn't take it away for a 3rd party, they should leave the Ad. Simple consistency]

[MatthewCampbell]

I'm not the downvoter, but perhaps they were annoyed with "Would Google of" rather than "Would Google have." That particular error really gets on people's nerves.

[protomyth]

If people are down voting others based on grammar, then English-as-a-second-language folks are going to have problems.

[Terretta]

60% of my interactions are with ESL or ETL engineers. Would of, could of, should of, on accident, and the like, are hallmarks of a generation holding the less well read attitude that grammar doesn't matter. The ESLs I work with thank one for a correction, incorporate it, and move on. Bad grammar is a bug. We all make them, reading clean code reduces them, and peer review helps too.

[protomyth]

Peer review doesn't work if the person reviewing only puts a -1 at the top of the source code.

// I am sorry for any grammar errors in the above sentence. don't worry, I won't do it again.

[samfoo]

"Would of", "could of", "should of" are certainly errors when conjugating , but "on accident"? Either preposition "by" or "on" seems correct to me and the correct choice seems arbitrary -- though I find myself preferring "on".

From what I could find doing some (brief) research, this is a case in which the difference breaks down nearly perfectly along generational lines. Those ages thirty-five and under overwhelmingly prefer "on" and those younger prefer "by"[1]. Prepositional choice has always seemed a bit arbitrary to me, and the fact that there are dialectical differences reenforces that belief[2].

To suggest that this contributes to a "generation holding the less weel read attitude that grammar doesn't matter" strikes me as a bit misguided.

[1] http://www.inst.at/trans/16Nr/01_4/barratt16.htm [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_di...

[Terretta]

I chose "on accident" precisely to inject the generational notion into my comment, being well aware of its notability as an indicator of usage patterns by age.

First, in your citation 1, you have the generational aspect of "on" and "by" reversed. The original and correct[1] usage is "by accident". Acceptance by the younger generation doesn't make "on accident" correct, it is just accepted for lack of knowing otherwise. (This will, granted, eventually result it in showing up in dictionaries as a usage.)

The new generation, whether less read or less likely to have read the writings of prior generations, is less influenced by existing usage, and mistakenly verbalizes "on accident" to over-regularize with "on purpose".

"Over-regularization" is the kind of mistake a toddler makes until they learn correct usage by hearing and reading correct usages from multiple example experiences.[1] As the new generation reads less old material, and socializes textually with peers more and earlier, incorrect usages imprint to the point they gain defenders from the "everyone's doing it so don't call it wrong" camp.

1. http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/onaccident.html

2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2779922/

[samfoo]

I'm not making an argument ad populum and even if I were, I don't see how it holds any more weight than your argument from antiquity.

Language and grammar evolves and as far as linguistic changes go, the use of one preposition over another is pretty benign. Prepositional choice is already essentially arbitrary and varies from region to region.

English is a moving target. The current generation forming its own vernacular doesn't make in any more or less correct than when the previous generation did it. It's not as if English has its own académie française, and the flexibility of English is one of its most charming properties.

Leaving aside the condescending quip about toddlers, I don't see how over-regularization of prepositions is a bad thing. They're already confusing enough as it is and I personally would prefer a language with more consistent rules than not.

EDIT: A quick addendum: I didn't actually know this was a mistake and I appreciate having learned it anyway.

[Dylan16807]

Is this a common ESL problem? It's based on audible similarity but I would expect non-native speakers to be exposed to comparatively more text than audio.

[msg]

When people say this, I usually hear "Would Google've". It looks horrible that way, but captures the intention. I might use it orally (or in fiction dialogue), but not in writing.

[robryan]

As far as I understand they usually state that the webspam team works in isolation from the Adwords team so no.