Re: *could of

--- James Campbell <james@...> wrote:
> Mike Poxon eskrE»
> > Something I've noticed very much recently,
> certainly in British English;
> not
> > just sound change, but syntactic change too. The
> ending /schwa+v/ found in
> > "could've", "should've" etc., is being interpreted
> as "of" instead of a
> > contraction of "have", and the emphatic response
> articulated as "You
> should
> > of!" instead of "You should have" and so on.
Definitely in American (at least, Mid-western) English
too!!

> Well, I can confirm that this was around 25 years
> ago... I *vividly* recall
> writing "would of" instead of "would have" in a
> little story at school when
> I was six, maybe seven. The red pen marks of
> correction are still burnt on
> my retina. I never ever ever did it again.
> But it's true, many young people use "of" in the
> emphatic. Maybe they aren't
> corrected by their teachers any more.
I'm only 26 y/o, but I can confirm that as recently as
15 years ago, there were teachers correcting it!

Matt33


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