If you couldve wrote any book...

ronbutters at AOL.COM ronbutters at AOL.COM
Sun Apr 20 20:16:07 UTC 2008


These have been studied for years, emg. by Michael Miller & Virginia McDavid

------Original Message------
From: Arnold M. Zwicky
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Sent: Apr 20, 2008 1:28 PM
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] If you couldve wrote any book...

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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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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