Not talking about typos either. I'm talking about "they don't know the difference between the two words."

I have never been confused about these words, even as a young child. Even as a 6 year old.

QUIET = 2 syllables, pronounced "KWY - ET", meaning "silence"

QUITE = 1 syllable, rhymes with WHITE, TIGHT, LIGHT. Meaning "exceedingly".

I see so many people use one in place of the other. Are people really that stupid today?

One thing I constantly hear on youtube and in commercials is adding a modifier before
the word unique, such as super unique or very unique. Something is either unique or
it isn't. A unique thing can't be made more unique.
Also, the word "amazing" is probably the most overused superlative by far.
Literally everything is AMAZING, from some new cereal or deodorant.
I think it's a psychological conditioning to lower our standards not only
on consumer products but aesthetics in general...and of course moral framework.
If everything is AMAZING then everything is banal.

Quiet a super-amazing post, MV!

tow the line instead of toe the line
conscious instead of conscience
peaked my interest instead of piqued my interest
baited breath instead of bated breath

One of my "faves": tenet vs tenant

I guess I'm just used to, and more comfortable, being around smart people.

HERE is the kind of mistake I would understand: A father has a good grip on his 4 year old daughter's hand on the way into the store, and she says, "Daddy, you're stopping my calculation!" (meaning "circulation") The girl was my little sister.

Those are big words for a 4 year old, so it's understandable. But "quiet" and "quite" aren't even in the same department. They're as different to me as "xylophone" and "fear" -- and about as likely to be mixed up.

Is the mixup just in speaking or in typing? I can see how quiet can be typed as quite by accident.

It happens to that word (and that word alone) too much for it to always be a typo.

I remembered another such one: "sale" vs "sell"

In my part of Texas I see on Craigslist "for sell" all the time. I mean, sale is a noun and sell is a verb!

I guess with a thick southern (Georgia? Texas?) accent, sell is pronounced like sale -- but that just proves how invalid that accent is When an accent causes you to have bad spelling, it's an objectively wrong, bad accent PERIOD.

But again, even if you grew up pronouncing sell "sale" because you're Southern, you still would have no issues IF YOU CRACKED A BOOK ONCE IN A WHILE. So you have to be illiterate/ignorant AND southern for the problem to happen. That's why I criticize. Not because someone was born a certain way, but because they are stupid.

There is no "R" in wash, for example. So while some Kentuckians say "worsh" and Midwesterners say -- "wash" -- who is right? Um, the Midwesterners. Who gets to say that? Well, the spelling of course!

One thing I constantly hear on youtube and in commercials is adding a modifier before
the word unique, such as super unique or very unique. Something is either unique or
it isn't. A unique thing can't be made more unique.
Also, the word "amazing" is probably the most overused superlative by far.
Literally everything is AMAZING, from some new cereal or deodorant.
I think it's a psychological conditioning to lower our standards not only
on consumer products but aesthetics in general...and of course moral framework.
If everything is AMAZING then everything is banal.

I think the most inappropriately and over-used word of the decade is "literally."

Are people really that stupid today?

Yes.

English is not my first language, and I know I am not a great writer, but the mixing up of "their" and "they're" is quite annoying. This one seems to be quite prevalent.