caivano Wrote:

JimmySeal Wrote:

caivano Wrote:Also 'should not of' sounds completely fine too.

Sorry, caivano. "Should not of" is wrong. No two ways about it.

Then I don't speak 'correct' English, but I don't really care to either. Maybe I shouldn't of become an English teacher

(btw I wouldn't normally use it in writing but definitely in speech.)

I guess you don't realize it, but unbeknownst to you, you are actually saying "should not have" or "should not've." Please promise me you'll never use "should (not) of", "could (not) of", "would (not) of" in writing. It's like nails on a chalkboard.

don't think so, but like I said I'm flexible

I actually like all the differences in English, and how they develop.

This thread reminded me of how it was an eureka moment to me when I realized "sh'dnnuhv" I kept hearing was actually "shoodoh nohttoh hahboo" I learned at school when I was a grade schooler.

zachandhobbes Wrote:Everyone is ganging up on me so I'm sorry if I don't reply to everyone but in my own anecdotal experience, whenever I turned in an english essay throughout high school and in my college experience, if I ever used 'they' to refer to a singular person, I always got marked off for it because it was considered incorrect grammar.

Yes, that unfortunately does happen -- but college and high school teachers mark off for stupid stuff and have pet peeves like everyone else. Of course you have to follow their lead when you're in their class, but it doesn't mean everyone will think you're dumb if you change your ways once you're not in school anymore.

Quote:It's just that you can't use that argument go say "welp, now I'm going to just change everything and it'll still be okay."

The higher up you get in academics, the less you have to listen to other people's grammar pet peeves. ;-)

This thread reminded me of going to Trinidad and thinking their English sounded really cool.

zachandhobbes Wrote:You could go around writing "I should not of" instead of "I should not have" and eventually a bunch of people might even start believing that it's right, but that doesn't make it right...

Actually, it does... That's the way languages evolve.

JimmySeal Wrote:Maybe that's how people would react to it, but it's more like saying "A precipitate didn't form in the solution." instead of "A precipitate did not form in the solution." Writing "advanced English papers" requires you to write like you have a stick up your butt.

Academic writing does not require you to write like you have a stick up your butt, and hasn't done for decades. Lots of people still think it does, though, and others write that way because they are scared that the paucity of their thinking will become clear if they write simply and clearly. In spoken text nobody will notice the use of 'they'; in a paper you could point out in a footnote that this was your practice if you wish.

Sebastian Wrote:

zachandhobbes Wrote:You could go around writing "I should not of" instead of "I should not have" and eventually a bunch of people might even start believing that it's right, but that doesn't make it right...

Actually, it does... That's the way languages evolve.

That's a terrible argument... By your rules we should all be spelling weird as wierd and friend and freind.

No no no no no. This has nothing to do with evolution at all. This is basic communication, not the evolution of a language. "of" is a preposition indicating possession or a quantity, as in "Joan OF Arc." Or, "I would like three OF those shiny red apples."

Have is a verb. "I HAVE a splitting headache." "I would like to HAVE some good liquor right now." "Sorry, we are out OF the good stuff, would you like to HAVE some OF the cheap stuff?"

Without basic grammatical rules, you don't know what the hell anybody is saying, and it all becomes a pile of meaningless mumbling. Prepositions have their job, to indicate that something belongs to the next word, and verbs indicate that an action is being performed. Two *entirely* different functions.

Otherwise, I can just start carp miller wobble wobble boom buggly the of!

This conversation reminded me of Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography in youtube

You should watch it, it's interesting. Personally, I agree on what he says.

zachandhobbes Wrote:

Sebastian Wrote:

zachandhobbes Wrote:You could go around writing "I should not of" instead of "I should not have" and eventually a bunch of people might even start believing that it's right, but that doesn't make it right...

Actually, it does... That's the way languages evolve.

That's a terrible argument.

Then why aren't we all still spelling things like in the 1500's and speaking Old English?

richfv:

Quote:This is basic communication, not the evolution of a language.

What we're really talking about here is a casual speech pronunciation form that people are representing in writing in a nonstandard way. There's no reason why it couldn't be spelled "of" -- the fact that there's another "of" that's a preposition is irrelevant. "Have" isn't functioning as the verb meaning "to possess" anyway; it's just a grammatical marker. Now, spelling it as "of" is nonstandard, but it doesn't really represent any sort of language change at all, it's just a spelling issue.

("evolution" is misleading because it implies some sort of forward movement or improvement, but languages just change, they don't get better or worse.)

claudia Wrote:This conversation reminded me of Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography in youtube

You should watch it, it's interesting. Personally, I agree on what he says.

ya this is terrific. personally I don't agree with him though ;D I believe in a core objectively correct grammatical identity for at least the english language... or else I fear we can all fall of the edge into the moral relativism fry refers to as 'not caring', when we talk about things like language's inherently evolutionary nature.

(obviously i'm a bit of a hypocrite because i refuse to capitalize appropriately, however that's my one guilty pleasure.)

Any Hofstadter fans? Excerpt from "A Person Paper on Purity in Language" (written under the name William Satire )

(It's so "hilarious" that "shrill" anti-racist "squawkers" are so "hysterical" and "fanatical" about trying to "liberate us poor dupes." Sound familiar? ;p)

caivano Wrote:don't think so, but like I said I'm flexible

I actually like all the differences in English, and how they develop.

I have gone to the pool.
I should have (should've... sounds like 'should of') gone to the pool.

I of gone to the pool.
I should of gone to the pool.

Which two make the most sense?

dtcamero Wrote:ya this is terrific. personally I don't agree with him though ;D I believe in a core objectively correct grammatical identity for at least the english language...

Unfortunately this is quite difficult to accomplish, since the English language is the lovely amalgamation of many languages (German, Saxon, French [or perhaps more appropriately Anglo-Norman], you name it, we got it). If we were to stick to the original concepts of English, we might as well be speaking Saxon with the occasional French word... And if we were to try to standardize this mess completely (which we've tried to do, Latin anybody?), it would force us to change our language, both spoken and written, in some major ways (so 'evolution'). Such changes have happened an uncountable number of times already, but most of these instances occurred naturally (so, once again, 'evolution').

Also, if we were to standardize English completely, the grammar would become easier for foreigners and they wouldn't make as many funny mistakes. 8( Basically what I'm saying is that, a core set of invariable grammatical rules would be nice, but not practical to make, nor easy to arbitrarily force (SPLIT INFINITIVE YO) on the English speaking population. I don't care whether or not someone manages to make English an unchanging language in the future, but I like the changes we've had so far, so I'd like to see where we end up in a couple of decades.

JAAIV Wrote:I have gone to the pool.
I should have (should've... sounds like 'should of') gone to the pool.

I of gone to the pool.
I should of gone to the pool.

Which two make the most sense?

Well, number one, two and four make perfect sense from an aural point of view... Most people would disagree that four is correct, but any English speaker should understand exactly what it means at the first glance. In this respect, it makes equally as much sense as the first two sentences. From a grammatical point of view, however, there is much to be debated...

JAAIV Wrote:

caivano Wrote:don't think so, but like I said I'm flexible

I actually like all the differences in English, and how they develop.

I have gone to the pool.
I should have (should've... sounds like 'should of') gone to the pool.

I of gone to the pool.
I should of gone to the pool.

Which two make the most sense?

If you say them at a decent speed they all do, just sounds like you have a bit of a funky accent with the 3rd one

yudantaiteki Wrote:What we're really talking about here is a casual speech pronunciation form that people are representing in writing in a nonstandard way. There's no reason why it couldn't be spelled "of" -- the fact that there's another "of" that's a preposition is irrelevant. "Have" isn't functioning as the verb meaning "to possess" anyway; it's just a grammatical marker. Now, spelling it as "of" is nonstandard, but it doesn't really represent any sort of language change at all, it's just a spelling issue.

("evolution" is misleading because it implies some sort of forward movement or improvement, but languages just change, they don't get better or worse.)

You could just as well argue that the prepositional 'of' may take on extra connotations of a verb, with its meaning ~ possession. Of course that's a long way ahead and I'm sure there are many instances of that in language, which could be the very reason grammatical markers do indeed have different connotations.

Also, it is language evolution, evolution is just change, over time by successive reproduction over other possible realities. Evolution doesn't have any connotation of 'improvement'. That is just an unfortunate consequence of people thinking that it does. It is a huge misconception and I believe it comes from either religious doctrine or us narcissistic homo sapiens who believe that they're somehow superior in form than other species without thinking about how subjective the idea of superiority in species is.

Also, what's with the hate on nestor.

caivano Wrote:

JAAIV Wrote:

caivano Wrote:don't think so, but like I said I'm flexible

I actually like all the differences in English, and how they develop.

I have gone to the pool.
I should have (should've... sounds like 'should of') gone to the pool.

I of gone to the pool.
I should of gone to the pool.

Which two make the most sense?

If you say them at a decent speed they all do, just sounds like you have a bit of a funky accent with the 3rd one

I'm not trying to e-hate, but isn't that just the explanation for why you got it wrong in the first place? The question isn't "which sound right"; the question is "which make the most sense when you actually look at the words you're using."

The only reason I'm pressing this is because you're an english teacher.

If you need more proof, here it is on the Washington State University website: http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/couldof.html

Thora Wrote:Any Hofstadter fans?

YES! Gödel, Escher, Bach and I am a Strange Loop were mind blowing. Self-referentiality is an extremely important philosophical/mathematical/scientific concept, but is often poorly understood by experts in those disciplines.

While I'm talking about self-referentiality, has anyone studied Gödel's incompleteness theorems? I took a course solely about them a few years ago. I can't even begin to describe my awe at the precision by which he basically ended all the vain hopes of trying to find a formal system (with about the strength of Peano Arithmetic) in which all of the statements within the system could be proved by its axioms. Seriously, if you're into math, logic, or just enjoy feeling intimidated in the presence of a colossal and unstoppable intellectual power, then you need to study the incompleteness theorems.

JAAIV Wrote:

caivano Wrote:

JAAIV Wrote:I have gone to the pool.
I should have (should've... sounds like 'should of') gone to the pool.

I of gone to the pool.
I should of gone to the pool.

Which two make the most sense?

If you say them at a decent speed they all do, just sounds like you have a bit of a funky accent with the 3rd one

I'm not trying to e-hate, but isn't that just the explanation for why you got it wrong in the first place? The question isn't "which sound right"; the question is "which make the most sense when you actually look at the words you're using."

The only reason I'm pressing this is because you're an english teacher and I'd prefer to have this kind of thing out of common parlance (correct your students!). It's like the damned "on accident" crap.

If you need more proof, here it is on the Washington State University website: http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/couldof.html

In your opinion I'm wrong because we have different opinions of what is wrong and right.

You mean that you and Washington state University have different opinions of what's right and wrong about English grammar. Btw, I think you're totally right, we should burn grammar books and listen to you.

Re: 'should of' I'm talking about using it in speech, or writing it as it sounds in speech.

I think people can speak however they please as long as they can be understood. I enjoy listening to and reading English where people bend and break English grammar rules.

This my final post on this topic as I'm boring myself now :$

btw that Stephen Fry video is great, that sums up pretty much what I think (but am too lazy to write).

caivano Wrote:Re: 'should of' I'm talking about using it in speech, or writing it as it sounds in speech.

The thing that people use in speech that sounds like "should of" is actually "should've"

'should of' just happens to sound the same as 'should've' if you have a certain accent. While it's true that mistakes -exactly- like this are how languages evolve, it doesn't mean that it's not a mistake when it first happens. -Most- mistakes like this simply make you look illiterate, even the ones that will later be adopted into the language by sheer popularity (because, ultimately, academic rules on language are like any scientific field... they describe what exists. Unfortunately for language scholars, -that- field is subject to change without notice.)

Anyway, given that in many English-speaking regions there would be no chance of confusing 'should have' and 'should of' (because they say 'shoulda' or because they pronounce 'of' as 'uh' or 'oh' rather than anything like 'uv', there are many ways the two can be utterly different from each other), I think it's unlikely that 'should of' will ever gain the popularity needed to be introduced as a set phrase into the language. Even if I'm wrong, that doesn't make it anything other than a mistake of not knowing how to spell what you're saying under the present-day language. That -this- mistake might eventually become an evolution of the language doesn't make it -not- a mistake for any particular mistake being committed at the moment.

(Unfortunately for certainly earlier posters with pet peeves 'on accident' is more likely to survive, as there's no compelling reason to prefer 'by accident' in what's essentially a set phrase. 'by accident' may make a certain grammatical sense, but 'on accident' mirrors 'on purpose' which is also compelling. If enough youth prefer what they hear to what they read, the language will change in another few decades when many of those youth become greying authors in their own right... )

chair Wrote:

caivano Wrote:Re: 'should of' I'm talking about using it in speech, or writing it as it sounds in speech.

The thing that people use in speech that sounds like "should of" is actually "should've"

I knooooooooooooooooooooow