*then
I'm trying to write as correct as I can, but the GP just proved that these mistakes happen to everyone, even the people that think that it might make sense.
What about non-native speakers? Their point might be valuable, the participation in a discussion really help- and meaningful, but still - these now/know, there/their, you're/your mistakes are common. And not an indication of intelligence.
Edit: Just to be sure here and kind of answering the posts below: Guys, I'm a non-native speaker as well (in fact, my accent is terrible. I try to write as decent as possible, but that's a different thing). So - my data point, without any backing but my past experience, is that this is indeed an error that non-native speakers do just as well. I didn't want to imply that non-native speakers are idiots per se according to the criteria of this blog.
In my head, "then" and "than" sound totally different. Same with "they're", "their", and "there", "loose" and "lose", etc.
Probably this just proves that my accent is crap, but for me 'then' and 'than' sound about ~the same~, ditto for 'their'/'there' and 'loose'/'lose'. Again - probably I'm just missing something here. Improving my spoken English is definitely on the list of things I want to do..
When I speak, of course, they sound identical, but my spoken accent is not the accent I think in.
"I'm doing good" instead of "I'm doing well" "He eats real fast" instead of "He eats really quickly"
If enough people speak that way, I don't think you can call it "wrong" so much as a dialect in its own right.
Fast and good are de facto adverbs. Maybe in some American dialects it's common to use other adjectives as adverbs, but not in mine.
Agree that language changes.
You just triggered an image of my first english teacher. 'To be plus adjective, adjective plus noun, verb plus adverb' was her favorite. ;)