"when it does not occur but might have done" (was Re: Guardian Usage Column)

[Gregory {Greg} Downing]

At 07:23 PM 10/27/2000, Grant Barrett <gbarrett at monickels.com> wrote:
>[From a] column from the Guardian regarding reader complaints about usage.
>
>"...when it does not occur but might have done."
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/saturday_review/story/0,3605,385712,00.html
>
>I should also say that, as usual, the "might have done" cries out to me as odd.
>I would either end the sentence at "have" or add suffix a "so."
>

When I moved from southern Michigan to England in the ninth grade, back in
the 70s, this exact usage was one of the things that leapt out at Americans
as "different" about UK usage. Those among us American high school kids in
London who sometimes felt some need to "pass" for non-Americans (of course,
*I* never tried to do something so *sneaky* and ill-advised, tee hee... I'm
sure people were not fooled except in the most concise of exchanges) would
tend to find opportunities to use, inter alia, "might/should/etc. have done"
in an attempt to fool the locals.


Greg Downing, at greg.downing at nyu.edu or gd2 at is2.nyu.edu