It does seem like a really obvious and easy slip to make, but I can understand worrying if it seems to be happening more.
I've noticed over the last few years that I've started to make appalling solecisms in my writing, especially homonymical ones like you're/your). I'm not remotely in any doubt about the correct usage, and I'm mortified when it happens: it's just that my fingers sometimes type the wrong one without me noticing. Previously, I couldn't have helped but notice. Indeed, I used to find it almost impossible to notice much else when reading things containing such slips, which was a problem in my line of work since it's so much about feedback on drafts of writing. So the change has had a positive effect, at least. I'm much better at skimming a document for what it's saying overall than I used to be.
In my chipper moments I think this sort of effect is part of becoming more efficient as one ages, rather than being a sign of decline. Let the young ones do the close-up work (figurative and literal - I'm not enjoying presbyopia developing) and those of us with more life experience can work on the big picture.
I do think that seeing the bigger picture comes with greater experience. Maybe it's our only hope.
I used to be a software developer - I haven't really written anything for a couple of years, but in addition to my skills getting out of date, making little errors like these make me wonder if I could still do that. A stray ! which you didn't mean to type can make a world of difference and be very time consuming to track down.
I'm making bigger mistakes than that though. Like being taken in by one of those "pay for EHIC" scams because it had NHS in the URL and I didn't think any further about it. And last week's was booking the wrong dates for my own wedding anniversary trip, and not only not noticing, but still not noticing when they sent a confirmation email. (They sent another "your holiday is in 1 week" email which made me go "what?!") I'm making mistakes of that magnitude about once a month. It makes me worry what I could fuck up if I got a responsible job.
I've noticed over the last few years that I've started to make appalling solecisms in my writing, especially homonymical ones like you're/your). I'm not remotely in any doubt about the correct usage, and I'm mortified when it happens: it's just that my fingers sometimes type the wrong one without me noticing. Previously, I couldn't have helped but notice. Indeed, I used to find it almost impossible to notice much else when reading things containing such slips, which was a problem in my line of work since it's so much about feedback on drafts of writing. So the change has had a positive effect, at least. I'm much better at skimming a document for what it's saying overall than I used to be.
In my chipper moments I think this sort of effect is part of becoming more efficient as one ages, rather than being a sign of decline. Let the young ones do the close-up work (figurative and literal - I'm not enjoying presbyopia developing) and those of us with more life experience can work on the big picture.
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I used to be a software developer - I haven't really written anything for a couple of years, but in addition to my skills getting out of date, making little errors like these make me wonder if I could still do that. A stray ! which you didn't mean to type can make a world of difference and be very time consuming to track down.
I'm making bigger mistakes than that though. Like being taken in by one of those "pay for EHIC" scams because it had NHS in the URL and I didn't think any further about it. And last week's was booking the wrong dates for my own wedding anniversary trip, and not only not noticing, but still not noticing when they sent a confirmation email. (They sent another "your holiday is in 1 week" email which made me go "what?!") I'm making mistakes of that magnitude about once a month. It makes me worry what I could fuck up if I got a responsible job.
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