"should have done"

[Wilson Gray]

On 12/11/05, RonButters at aol.com <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       RonButters at AOL.COM
>
> Subject:      =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Re:=20=A0=20=A0=20=A0=20Re:=20"should=20have=20do?
>               = =?ISO-8859-1?Q?ne"?=
>
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>
> > See my article, =E2=80=9CSyntactic Change in British English
> =E2=80=98Prop=
> redicates,=E2=80=99=E2=80=9D=20
> > Journal of English Linguistics 16 (1983), 1=E2=80=937. There is, I
> think,=20=
> a historical=20
> > difference between should have done and ever shall do.
> >=20
> > In 1983 I did not have search engines and the internet to help me
> find=20
> > examples, but I did find examples in Dickens and Iris Murdoch, and a
> wonde=
> rful=20
> > example in Brideshead Revisited, wherein Waugh did NOT use the
> constructio=
> n in=20
> > the speech of his characters BUT the scrmipt writer for the TV series
> adde=
> d=20
> > the consruction. My conclusion=C2=A0 was that the U.K. propredicate has
> be=
> en around=20
> > a long time, but it gained popularity AFTER the Second World War.
> >=20
> > Americans, of course, do use the form, but in a restricted way:
> >=20
> > I should have done that.
> > I should have done so.
> > I stepped on the top rung of the _latter_


The latter was, no doubt, a ladder.
--
-Wilson Gray