he might well could of

[Charles C Rice]

My guess is that this is McCarthy's good ear. It sounds perfectly natural
to me as a 'might could' speaker. The lack of hits is due to the kinds of
things that get written. A very quick survey of Mark Davies' Corpus of
Contemporary American English gives these results (out of 410 million
words total):

might well have         528
might could     60 (57 from spoken or fiction genres)
could of                170 (119 spoke/fict; only about 1/3 of total are
the target construction)
might of                41 (32 spoke/fic; 5 are 'of course')
could've                1545 (1177 spoke/fic)
might've                561 (468 spoke/fic)
might could have        2 (both fiction. 1 additional hit uses have as a
main verb)
might could of  0

Most of his spoken corpus comes from TV transcripts, so "might/could of"
in that context is either transcription error or some sort of misguided
attempt by the transcriber to recreate the dialect voice. Since 'well' is
well attested between 'might' and 'have', I'd think it would be natural to
use it in a 'might could of' construction. And there's no questions that
'might could of' is natural, despite its not appearing in this large
corpus.

Clai Rice

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Frank [mailto:paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, September 17, 2010 2:25 PM
> Subject: he might well could of
>
> Reading Cormac McCarthy's All The Pretty Horse's I've just come across
> the phrase "he might well could of." The phrase gets a single googlit,
> from McCarthy's book. "He might well could have" yields zero hits. So
> I'm asking myself: I presume that McCarthy has an ear for the language
> as she is spoke, or was spoke, in the places and times where he sets
> his books. How come "might well could of" (without the "he" in front)
> gets zero hits, as does "he might well could of"? "Might well could
> of" yields eight hits. Is it because it's pretty much a nonce phrase?
> Or because it's the sort of phrase no one writes down?
>
> Here's the passage:
>
> "You think he really done that?
> Yeah. I think probably he did.
> John Grady nodded. He might well could of."
>
> Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses, Kindle edition, 31% into the
book.
>
> I just love that "might well could of."
>
> And by way of a lagniappe, or thanks, for picking your learned brains,
> here's another passage:
>
> "His father smoked. He watched him.
>
> You still seein that Barnett girl?
>
> He shook his head.
>
> She quit you or did you quit her?
>
> I don't know.
>
> That means she quit you.
>
> Yeah.
>
> His father nodded. He smoked."
>
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
>
> Paul Frank
> Translator
> German, French, Italian > English
> paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
> paul.frank at bfs.admin.ch

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