common grammar mistakes in texting
10 Common Grammar Mistakes in Texting (And Which Ones Matter)
Some grammar mistakes are typos. These ten aren't - they're patterns people genuinely believe are correct, which is why they survive spellcheck, autocorrect, and years of texting. Here's the list, the fix for each, and an honest take on which ones actually matter in a chat.
The ten, with fixes
Every entry here passes spellcheck, because every word in the wrong version is a real word. That's the common thread - these are sentence-level mistakes, invisible to word-level tools.
| Mistake | Correct | Why it happens |
|---|---|---|
| "could of / should of" | could have / should have | "could've" sounds like "could of" |
| "I seen him yesterday" | I saw him yesterday | seen needs a helper: "I have seen" |
| "me and him went" | he and I went | subject vs object pronouns |
| "less people" | fewer people | fewer for countable things, less for amounts |
| "between you and I" | between you and me | overcorrection of "me and him" |
| "alot" | a lot | two words, always |
| "irregardless" | regardless | the ir- adds nothing |
| "loose" for "lose" | lose the game, loose knot | one letter, different words |
| "then" for "than" | better than, then we left | than compares, then sequences |
| "apostrophe's for plural's" | apostrophes for plurals | apostrophes show possession, not plural |
Why these survive autocorrect
Autocorrect compares each word to a dictionary. "Could of done it" contains four real words - nothing to flag. Catching the mistake requires knowing that "could of" isn't a valid construction, which means reading words in relation to each other. That's grammar checking, and it's not what runs by default on your phone.
Do they actually matter in texting?
Honest answer: it depends on the audience. In a chat with close friends, nobody's grading you. The mistakes start costing in three places: professional messages, where they read as carelessness; dating, where early messages are the whole first impression; and anything that gets screenshotted or forwarded. The pattern is stakes plus strangers - the less someone knows you, the more your grammar stands in for you.
Fixing them without studying
You can memorize ten rules, or you can run the sentence through a checker built to catch exactly this class of mistake. Checker's Standard Check reads the full sentence, so "could of", "I seen", and "less people" get corrected in one pass - in the app you're already typing in. The rules are still worth knowing; the point is not needing to run them on every message.
Frequently asked questions
What's the most common grammar mistake in texting?
"Could of / should of" and the their/they're family top most lists - both are spelled-correctly mistakes that autocorrect can't see.
Is "I seen" ever correct?
Not on its own. "Seen" needs a helper verb: "I have seen it" works, "I seen it" doesn't - the standalone past tense is "saw".
Do grammar mistakes matter in casual texting?
With friends, rarely. With strangers, dates, and professional contacts, they read as carelessness - stakes plus unfamiliarity is when they cost you.
How can I fix grammar mistakes as I text?
Use a sentence-level checker in the keyboard itself. Checker's Standard Check fixes this whole list in one tap, without leaving the chat.