must of have??

[Charles Doyle]

Though the faulty-editing hypothesis is plausible, I gotta say:  The "must of have" (or "musta have") construction does not sound wholly bizarre to me.

--Charlie


---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 09:51:29 -0500
>From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> (on behalf of Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>)
>Subject: Re: must of have??
>
>At 3:25 AM -0500 1/12/10, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>>I've seen "could/must have" and I've seen "could/must of"--I've even
>>seen "could/must off". But I've never seen "must of have". Was this an
>>accurate transcript or an editorial error resulting from trying to
>>correct "must of"?
>
>That's my take, an editing error.  The first version, I would guess,
>had "must of", and in correcting it to "must have" the "of" was
>inadvertently not removed. (And since these were oral remarks, the
>problem was with the writer and subsequent error and not with
>Paterson himself, if I'm right.) The repercussions are perhaps less
>serious than those incurred by leaving the sponge in at the operation
>site, but somewhat analogous.
>
>LH
>
>
>>
>>http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=887515&category=STATE
>>Paterson slams Reid comments
>>>"I'm just saying that it's disturbing a lot of people *must of have*
>>>seen this," Paterson continued during a question-and-answer period
>>>after a speech to Family Planning Advocates. "It's a very intrusive
>>>and kind of degrading remark, but it's one that was probably close to
>>>a different kind of way of phrasing it which might have been acceptable."
>>
>>     VS-)

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