Play Must of For Me

The following sentence is from a newspaper in the Chicago suburbs:

     Think how abused this poor animal must of felt.

When writing, we need to think about using the correct  words.  The spoken word might sound like more than one word, and we need to make sure that what is written makes sense.  The writer had to have been thinking "must've," and she should have written "must have" instead of "must of" to make it accurate.

We are all guilty sometimes of speaking before we think.  At least if we write before we think, we can correct it before anyone notices.