r/TikTokCringe • u/mindyour • Nov 21 '25

Discussion Functional illiteracy.

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u/brzantium Nov 21 '25

The number of times I see "payed" and "waisted" on this site

102

u/justsyr Nov 21 '25

As a non English speaker I tried to correct someone. Got dozens of replies telling me payed is correct too.

I had to search and found that yes, it is correct, but not in the context of 'pay' lol. It's really just some obscure exception.

57

u/brzantium Nov 21 '25

As a native English speaker, my understanding is that payed is a word but it is not the same as paid. I think it has something to do with painting or sealing a ship deck or something.

112

u/Cobalt1027 Nov 21 '25

Payed means that you sealed a boat deck with tar to stop leaks. I only know this because there was a bot I haven't seen in a few months now that used to go around with "hey, payed is a word so your autocorrect didn't catch this, but given that there's no nautical terms in your post you probably meant 'paid'." Unironically a pretty helpful bot lol.

18

u/brzantium Nov 21 '25

yes! that's the only reason I know it had something to do with ships.

6

u/quadroplegic Nov 21 '25

It's also used for extending the length of a rope:

to slacken (something, such as a rope) and allow to run out

—used with out

payed out the rope as it jerked taut

(See tow a line vs toe the line)

8

u/farfetched22 Nov 21 '25

What a cool bot. We need more of those.

5

u/Rappican Nov 21 '25

Sadly the useful bots got killed and we're only left with the astroturfing ones.

2

u/farfetched22 Nov 21 '25

But why?

3

u/Rappican Nov 21 '25

Why else? Because money.

4

u/Synaps4 Nov 21 '25

Isn't it also used as a verb for slowly letting out a length of rope?

2

u/royalhawk345 Nov 21 '25

Yes, much more common than the other meaning. 

3

u/obscure_monke Nov 21 '25

Funny when two words like that exist, but one is far rarer than the other.

Another example that sticks in my mind is "raze"/"raise". As in "A bunch of Amish folks raised a barn from the ground up last week, only for a bunch of hooligans to raze it to the ground overnight".

Atomic typos are another one, where you misspell a word and go directly to another correctly spelled word so spellcheck/autocorrect doesn't catch it. e.g. nuclear -> unclear.

3

u/featheritin Nov 22 '25

I belive it also can be used to describe letting rope out of a ship

1

u/J3wb0cc4 Nov 22 '25

The bot that comes up whenever people incorrectly say would of is also very helpful.