Oz--one f or two?

[Victor Steinbok]

Spotted in the commentary by an Australian reader of TPM:

"Thankfully we had travel insurance as there would have been no way we
_could of_ afforded treatment."


I used to think it was mostly the American privilege to write like this.
Now I've seen it in published or written sentences by people from the UK
(including Scotland), Ireland and Australia (no non-native speakers AFAIK).

These come in both "of" and "off" variants (no "ifs" so far). I suppose,
it's one of my pet peeves.

    VS-)

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