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Recently I've seen many people on Twitter use "of" instead of "have". Eg. Ben Stokes tweeted after the world cup final, " So proud to of represented my country in a world cup final"

I don't want to generalise, but I think I've seen this used by primarily British people. Is it slang or are my basics weak?

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It is wrong to use "of" there. It is used because it's hard to say "have" there without spluttering over our words. Therefore, we tend to pronounce it just like "of" and then start writing it as "of".

Further reading:

Would have vs. Would of | e Learn English language
Have and of - Commonly Confused Words

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  • +1 Good answer. The misuse preceded and reaches far beyond the internet.
    – Mark Hubbard
    Commented Apr 9, 2016 at 13:34
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The contraction of "could have" is "could've" and sounds very much like "could of". I suppose over time "have" got replaced by "of" since it seems to require less physical effort to pronounce.

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  • It's not so much that it was replaced, and more so that people hear it and learn from hearing instead of reading and learning that could've means could have and not could of.
    – Ky -
    Commented Apr 9, 2016 at 18:55
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I don't want to generalise, but I think I've seen this used by primarily British people. Is it slang or are my basics weak?

It is simply internet slang, and a scramble for words to fit into the 140 limit. People started shortening have to 'ave, then finally to of, so that they can get rid of those extra two letters.

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  • 2
    Doesn't 'ave have the same number of characters as have?
    – Federico Poloni
    Commented Apr 9, 2016 at 14:37
  • I believe he means in common speech
    – corsiKa
    Commented Apr 9, 2016 at 15:28

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