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Comment by mkatx | Hacker News Reader

I always wondered if some uses of the word 'and' I notice on occasion might have similar explanations, or if they were the result of misspelling, mistyping, incorrect autocorrect, etc.. anyone know?

Examples from published articles: "Barely half and hour was on the clock" "the hospital, which is in and area of central Homs" "spiraled into and armed uprising and civil war" "During and interview with ABC in July"

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These are typical errors made by the native speakers. Most (every?) language has rules, which are more difficult for a native speaker to follow vs. a well-spoken foreigner.

Other examples in English are:

- who vs whom

- then vs than

- ask vs acks

Very few people say "acks" instead of "ask". It's not a common error at all. I would say "who"/"whom" is the only truly common one you listed, though screwing up "than"/"then" is at least common enough that one runs into it with some regularity.

Ask vs acks is just a regional pronunciation variant, nothing inherently wrong with it. I have noticed that a lot of people from backgrounds with enforced language uniformity (french and Russian speakers for example) have trouble with the idea though.

It is similar to "they were there" vs. "they was there". You might as well call both examples as a regional pronunciation.

I prefer to call both of them mistakes. :-)

Otherwise we just end up accepting anything as valid, anything as a proper usage. The spelling bee loses any sense, because all the losers will claim that they were simply speaking/writing English in their own way.

Which region? I’d say it’s more tied to African American vernacular.

Less vs fewer.

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