Of course it's wrong

I just saw something on Facebook that has given me a very bad twitch. Worse than those Osama spam videos, or the text language that youngsters use while typing (don't even get me started on that). The crime? The misuse of the word 'of' in Kiwi lingo, like for example - "I should of known" or "I could of brought some more". What. The. Fridge.

I don't know the history of this obscenity, and pardon me for seeming like a grammar Nazi, it just gets on my nerves. It makes my eye literally twitch...which is why it's taking so long to type this. Earlier this week I found out that I wasn't suffering alone with this, and it seemed to be my fellow Samoan-born-and-raised-and-now-living-in-NZ Facebookers that firstly noticed this was happening, and secondly found it extremely...for lack of a better word - weird. Oh wait, here's a better word - gross.

Ok, now I sound mean. Which was not my intention. Let's go back to the beginning. I just saw an FB "friend" post a status about some Californian man making some silly prediction about the world ending tomorrow. It had turned into a nice little discussion and some interesting points were brought forward, then this post happened - "how would he of ever known this?". Now I have completely lost interest in the rest of the content, and every time I check out my FB News Feed it is all I can see. Would of. Would of. Would Of. WOULD OF. Argh!!!

It took all of my (little) self control to not comment saying "Did you mean 'would have' instead of 'would of''?".
I don't want the be the cow that killed the buzz. Besides, it's likely no one would know what the hell I was talking about. And when people are having serious Bible discussions about the return of Jesus and all that, in perspective this really doesn't matter, right? Well...it matters to me. And now I've had my little vent, I will go back to FB and click 'x'->'Hide this post' and put this behind me. Until I see the next 'of' offence...

Thanks for listening. This is so much cheaper than getting a shrink, right?