Wednesday 1 July 2009

appreciate of

"I would appreciate of this book." comments a guy on Facebook from Dothan, Alabama.

Appreciate of? Where did that come from? I assumed, correctly, that my find wasn't a one-off. A quick Google search turned up:

If you have decided on your career objectives, we would appreciate of description of them. (Alaska)
If you have items you think we might be able to use, or if you would like to contribute your time to assist in one of the many projects we have on-going, we would appreciate of these contributions, as well. (Georgia, US)
I would appreciate of synopsis of when and how fetal cells for transplant are obtained. (unknown)
I would appreciate of any help. (Mauritius)
Some of the required data are still missing thus we would appreciate of any completion of the already available data set. (Germany)
We thought that you would appreciate of being able to read the older Samui (and beyond) news any time. (Thailand)
Stick a bird feeder or two near the pond, I'm sure the birds would appreciate of full smorgesbord of nuts and mozzies. (Devon, England)
Should contents, layouts and designs on our site harm the rights of third parties or violate legal rules and regulations we would appreciate of being informed accordingly without costs. (Germany)
i would appreciate of your responses. (Malaysia)
I would appreciate of getting readers views of their measurement needs related to downloadable media. (unknown)

There's also a suspiciously large number of instances of "would appreciate of" that clearly mean "would appreciate (it) if". I suppose these could all be typos, but perhaps there are people who actually say "of" in this context also.

3 comments:

  1. I'm sure some of these originate in typos or thinkos.

    Just this morning I caught myself typing "the whole is greater than the some of its parts".

    People argue about "another thing coming", but I quite often catch myself typing "thing" instead of "think".

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  2. My thought is that they may be equating the syntax with "approve of". Neither "of" is really necessary.

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  3. Well spotted; the "of" may have intruded by analogy with "approve of".

    However, to approve _of_ something is not quite the same as to approve something.

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