If you couldve wrote any book...

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Apr 20, 2008, at 8:34 AM, david donnell wrote:

> Not to play grammar nazi, but the answers are almost as good as the
> question:
>
> http://www.nobodysmiling.com/forum/showthread.php?t=168187
>
> If you couldve wrote any book, what would it be?

the question has one non-standard feature, the past participle
identical to the past ("wrote" instead of "written"), plus the omitted
apostrophe ("couldve").  these past participles are a widespread
feature of non-standard american english (noted as such by mencken
long ago).

i don't have a file on them, but i remember a presentation by an IT
guy to my department at ohio state, a presentation just packed with
these non-standard past participles.

arnold

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