Hadda

[Victoria Neufeldt]

Then there's the Ogden Nash poem:

MY CONSCIENCE
I could of
If I would of
But I shouldn't
So I douldn't.

Victoria

Victoria Neufeldt
Merriam-Webster, Inc. P.O. Box 281
Springfield, MA 01102
Tel: 413-734-3134  ext 124
Fax: 413-827-7262

> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
> Of Rudolph C Troike
> Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2000 1:45 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Hadda
>
>
> Thanks to Pat for reminding us of the fascinating back-formed
> reconstruction "hadda", which gets more formally represented as "had of",
> presumably from the reduced form of "would have", namely "'d've":
>
>         If I would have been there,
>         If I'd've been there,
>         If I'd'a@ been there,
>         If I hadda been there,
>         If I had've/had of been there,
>
> Rudy
>