LL-L "Grammar" 2008.03.28 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 28 March 2008 - Volume 03
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From: heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk <heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.03.27 (05) [E]

From Heather Rendall heatherrendall at tiscali.co.uk

Reinhard/Ron wrote:
 I have been "armed" with the challenge "Would you say 'I have went'?"

Can we be entirely sure that this doesn't represent a really really old
version of the verb  "to wend" from which the past tense 'went' was
purloined and used instead of 'gang'  as in  go gang gone

I wend  I went    I have went my way home  ???????????

... used mostly of cows and drunks admittedly

Just a thought!
Heather

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From: KarlRein at aol.com
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.03.27 (05) [E]

This doesn't sound peculiar to me at all.  Though since the present perfect
is not used that much, I would have suggested illustrating the point using
"He had went..." instead.

I should add that in this part of the world where I have lived for decades
(Houston area), it is quite common to also hear "I had ran", "he hasn't
drank that much" and the like, by otherwise fairly well educated
middle-class people, replacing past participles with past tense forms of old
irregular verbs.  I first attributed this to avoidance of "drunk", since it
is a social no-no as an adjective, but then I realized that does not explain
"ran" for "run" which has no pejorative undertones.

Karl Reinhardt

 In a message dated 3/27/2008 7:52:34 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
lowlands.list at GMAIL.COM writes:

> I have already heard 'I have went'

Wow! Really? So far I have only come across constructions like "I
should/would have went" in American English, and that seems to be on the
increase. I have been "armed" with the challenge "Would you say 'I have
went'?"

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From: orville crane <manbythewater at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.03.27 (05) [E]

Hey Ron,
  Yes, I have heard it said by people in my county, 'I have went' and also
'the boat has sank'. This really grates on the ears, as I learned correct
English and attempt to speak correctly. I make a mental note, but generally
do not let the incorrect usage interfere with the speaker's meaning.
  Language is a lot like making music. Through practice of the instrument,
you eventually play in tune. The Suzuki method of learning to play an
instrument helps the students to
hear when they play out of tune and motivates them to play in tune.
  I guess that the same people that would also use the form that you
mentioned.
  I am searching Yahoo for the New Scientist article. It should be
interesting!
Heel bedankt!
Tom
man by die water

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.03.27 (05) [E]

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Hi, Tom!

> I have already heard 'I have went'

Wow! Really? So far I have only come across constructions like "I
should/would have went" in American English, and that seems to be on the
increase. I have been "armed" with the challenge "Would you say 'I have
went'?" According to what you say, this has been blown out of the water then
...

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

A fairly common past tense construction among less educated people has
emerged in both Australia and England: "I've bin.." as in "I've bin goin' t'
th' pub" - Standard English "I went to the pub"

Paul

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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.03.27 (05) [E]

R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com> writes (in response to Tom "man by the
water":
> Wow! Really? So far I have only come across constructions like "I
> should/would have went" in American English, and that seems to be on the
> increase.

When I am around folks that "feel" like down home, you might even hear
me say (in response, say to the question "have you gone / been to
Goa?")

"I might could have went there." (meaning high degree of uncertainty,
but reasonable degree of probability)

(my English is boringly standard when it comes to pronunciation, but
influenced to a noticable extent in grammar and lexicon by the speech
of the western (Appalachian foothills) part of Virginia.)

MWM || マイク || Мика || माईक || માઈક || ਮਾਈਕ
================
Dr Michael W Morgan
Managing Director
Ishara Foundation
Mumbai (Bombay), India
++++++++++++++++
माईकल मोर्गन (पी.एच.डी.)
मेनेजिंग डॉयरेक्टर
ईशारा फॉउंडेशन (मुंबई )
++++++++++++++++
茂流岸マイク(言語学博士)
イシャラ基金の専務理事・事務局長
ムンバイ(ボンベイ)、インド

----------

From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.03.27 (05) [E]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Language varieties
>
> Hi, Tom!
>
> > I have already heard 'I have went'

This has been rife for many decades in the central dialects of Lowland
Scots (since at least the 1960's because it's how I've always spoken in
casual situations) eg:

"She's went through tae Glesca for the day." (She's gone over to Glasgow
for the day).

Also some other verbal constructions:

"I've never haen a dug." (I've never had a dog).

"If he'd haen mair sense..." (If he'd had more sense...)

"She should hae taen the siller while she haed the chance."

"They shouldna hae gotten mairit in the first place."

"If I'd hae haen three bairns I'd hae haen tae taen the job an aa."
(If I had had three children I'd have had to have taken the job
likewise. - clumsy in English but not unusual in Central Scots).

"He didna like the place and he's never went back."

In the 1970's (I think) Glasgow comedian Rikki Fulton used this
construction on his TV programme in character as the Reverend I. M.
Jolly, in the telling of the parable of the Prodigal Son:

"For this is my son, who had went, and gone away, and now he has went
and come back again."

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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From: Sandy Fleming <sandy at scotstext.org>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.03.27 (05) [E]

> From: orville crane <manbythewater at hotmail.com>
> Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2008.03.27 (03) [E]
>
>   So many world-wide regional variations of the English language! I
> remember reading years ago about an international Scrabble competition
> in Great Britain. Americans had to brush up on another 40,000 words to
> be up to snuff with the English speakers in Great Britain. I realized
> then that if this was accurate, the version of English spoken in Great
> Britain was a richer variety that that spoken in the United States!

As an ex-gamer, I'm tempted to flag this as a myth.

The official dictionary for Scrabble competitions in the UK used to be
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary, which was a particularly idiosyncratic
work of lexicography (it defined an "eclair" as something like "long in
shape but short in duration", and some entries had to be removed because
of their offensive content), and it was randomly interspersed with Scots
and English dialect words. The two-letter words (particularly important
for Scrabble) included entries for things like "oo" (obscure Scots
dialect (ie, mine!) for "we") and "zo" (some sort of yak), which would
be understandable in the OED, but this was just a small one-volume
dictionary.

So yes, anyone coming to the UK to play Scrabble would have a lot of new
words to learn, most of which the non-Scrabble playing population of
Britain would never have heard of.

>   So many varieties of English; Indian, South African, Australian, New
> Zealand, American, Canadian, European, etc. It seems to me that even
> though 'friend' might be pronounced 'frien' or 'fren', that the word
> would still be spelled as 'friend', even though the 'd' would not be
> pronounced. The efforts to rationalize English orthography haven't
> been really successful. There is no English Academy to standardize the
> spelling of to keep 'foreign' words out of the vernacular.

You'll have noticed that the existence of a French Academy doesn't
accomplish these things for the French language either!
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