Should of (was: x > f sound change)

At 12:22 am -0400 14/9/01, John Cowan wrote:
>Michael Poxon scripsit:
>
>> 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. My kids (13 and 16) consider
>> this perfect grammatical.
>
>It's been going on over here since at least 1920.
And here, I believe also.  Certainly it ain't recent. I was are of this in
my secondary school days in the 1950s and I believe it was not new even
then.

It would be interesting to know when the first recorded instance of this.

But as Nik rightly pointed out, "should of" and "should've" are
homophonous; there is no sound change.

The interpretation of [(@)v] as "of" instead of "'ve" is, certainly, a
syntactic change, giving "of" yet another role.

Ray.





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A mind which thinks at its own expense
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