Why do people use ; instead of '

Hxc · 18 May 2011 at 22:10

People who inexplicably use backticks rather than apostrophes are the ones that confuse me.

Josh107 · 18 May 2011 at 22:11

Thought ; was kind of a standard character that gets inserted when someone uses a keyset or font that isn't supported on the site? It's pretty possible I could have just dreamt that though..

Destination · 18 May 2011 at 22:12

Very common typing error for me.
Do it all the time, worse in msn chat type messages where I have no chacne to reviewprior to spamming 'enter'.

Rich_L · 18 May 2011 at 22:13

Cos they are next to each other on the keyboard innit ;'

[FnG]magnolia · 18 May 2011 at 22:13

can you borrow me you;re laptop? It's better then mine. I;ll be over their.

Castiel · 18 May 2011 at 22:58

Simply because they are next to each other on a qwerty keyboard, and only a very specific sub-type of human being proof-reads forum posts before posting.

/thread

D.Roberts · 18 May 2011 at 22:59

I dont use neither of them in my sentences

not even a full stop

THMRK · 18 May 2011 at 23:00

Panzerbjorn said:
Is it simply because they type too fast and the ; key is next to the ' key

This. I'm prone to it myself.

Lightnix · 18 May 2011 at 23:02

I can#t believe people would do that.

Cosimo · 18 May 2011 at 23:05

Some are just are too lazy to type proper like. The rest probably think it~s correct.

D.Roberts · 18 May 2011 at 23:05

simulatorman said:
Some are just are too lazy to type proper like. The rest probably think it;s correct.

Hehehe.

Like me really.

Tonyator · 19 May 2011 at 04:15

I don;t know, but I can;t say I;ve noticed it much.

G18241 · 19 May 2011 at 04:49

Why have you asked a question without a "?" at the end? :eek:

OCdude · 19 May 2011 at 06:24

Hxc said:
People who inexplicably use backticks rather than apostrophes are the ones that confuse me.

Yes that`s pretty damned annoying!

Edrof · 19 May 2011 at 06:59

I do it all the time, but only because I hit the semi-colon key by accident.

On a related note, once you know the usage of the semi-colon it becomes very difficult to stop using them. Semi-colons are addictive.

RetiredGreyFox · 19 May 2011 at 07:57

Using ; instead of ' is probably a typo like typing teh but the worst offenders are those that type 'of' instead of 'have'.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18234710&highlight=startername_dmpoole

NotAGolf · 19 May 2011 at 08:41

I do this all the time. At least 80% of ' come out as ;

Annoys the hell out of me as I spend half an hour trying to correct them, and always miss one. I can't work out the reason why though. I never used to have a problem, but after spending a year traveling, I came back and have got it wrong ever since and this has gone on for 2 years now. Can't seem to correct myself

I'm sure it's because I used a keyboard with a different layout/style at one point, but you'd think after 2 years with the same keyboard one I'd sort myself out!

Irish_Tom · 19 May 2011 at 08:44

Castiel said:
Simply because they are next to each other on a qwerty keyboard, and only a very specific sub-type of human being proof-reads forum posts before posting.

/thread

I think I've already proved that I don't 100% proof-read my posts.

However, forgetting a punctuation mark is one thing but including an incorrect mark is something else all together. You've gone to the effort of typing it, you see that it's wrong but then you just leave it? It just doesn't make sense to me.

G18241 said:
Why have you asked a question without a "?" at the end?

Fixed, thank you.

edscdk · 19 May 2011 at 08:47

look at your keyboard = question answered

Greebo · 19 May 2011 at 09:13

I do it all the time. I just hit the wrong key. In fact you could recognise my posts on here even if they didn;t have my name on them as I think almost every post I do contains this error.....