Asklemmy

I'm Italian and I can't stand people using "piuttosto che" (which means "rather than") with the meaning of "or".

Correct:

Piuttosto che fare un errore, stai zitto.

Rather than making a mistake, keep quiet.

Wrong:

Posso mangiare dell'insalata piuttosto che dei pomodori.

I can eat a salad ["rather than" with the meaning of "or"] tomatoes.

Portuguese as first language here. Improper use of commas drives me fucking mental, and is very common.

In Portuguese, verbs have a ton of variations. They are written in a different way if you're talking about yourself, or the listener, or a third party, then additional differences for the plural of those variations. Plus several other things.

And people often write very poorly, using i instead of e is pretty common. Skipping question marks too. Sometimes you'll get a text from someone saying just "consegui" (meaning "I've managed to do it") when the person actually wanted to say "consegue?" ("can you do it?")

Couple days ago...just no. Couple OF days ago.

Interesting question! Mandatory note that natural languages by definition aren't designed, and are always evolving, so if enough native speakers do something it is correct.

In portuguese, there's a lot of people who insist on using "mais" (plus, more) instead of "mas" (but). How you speak it ends up being nearly identical, so that's the reason, much like the there/their/they're in english.