Oz--one f or two?

[Jonathan Lighter]

I saw plenty of "ofs" in this context when I was grading themes, but I doubt
very much that I ever saw an "off."  Caution alone prevents me from swearing
to it.

JL

On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 4:12 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Oz--one f or two?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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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