Siouanists, eat your heart out.

[bi1 at soas.ac.uk]

I always thought they were spelt 'should of' and 'might of' etc, but
then I also thought there was a verb 'to misle' with a past tense
'misled'.  I think I believed that well into my 30s.  Sic permutatent
linguae

Bruce

On 30 Jan 2002, at 16:17, Alan H. Hartley wrote:

> > This year's Oscar for Best Embedded Modal goes to an unidentified worker at
> > Disney World in Florida, who, when discussing dissatisfaction with worker
> > pay cuts, said, "It MIGHT'VE WOULD'VE quelled it a little if management had
> > taken a cut too,..."  Even I can't say that.
>
> "might could/would" is good southern, but this must just be Disney!


Dr. Bruce Ingham
Reader in Arabic Linguistic Studies
SOAS