With or without "with" - Canadian English / U.S. English

[Cyproject]

Hello,

An American friend and a Canadian friend recently argued about which of the following two sentences is 'technically' correct:

Canadian: "I hope you're done the project."
American: "I hope you're done with the project."

My fellow American and I believed that leaving out 'with' couldn't possibly be correct and decided that the Canadian supported sentence must actually be some sort of colloquialism. We asked several other Canadians which sentence they thought was correct and they unanimously picked "I hope you're done the project." We were shocked. One of the Canadians that we asked suggested that using 'with' in our example sentence was "a southern thing."

So, here is the question: Is leaving out 'with' grammatically correct? If so, which would be the preferred sentence structure for formal writing (technical reports, business correspondence, journalism, et cetera)?

Thanks for any information that you can offer,
Thomas

[amigos4]

Hello,

An American friend and a Canadian friend recently argued about which of the following two sentences is 'technically' correct:

Canadian: "I hope you're done the project."
American: "I hope you're done with the project."

My fellow American and I believed that leaving out 'with' couldn't possibly be correct and decided that the Canadian supported sentence must actually be some sort of colloquialism. We asked several other Canadians which sentence they thought was correct and they unanimously picked "I hope you're done the project." We were shocked. One of the Canadians that we asked suggested that using 'with' in our example sentence was "a southern thing."

So, here is the question: Is leaving out 'with' grammatically correct? If so, which would be the preferred sentence structure for formal writing (technical reports, business correspondence, journalism, et cetera)?

Thanks for any information that you can offer,
Thomas

Hi, Thomas!

"I hope you're done with the project" is definitely common usage in the US. Leaving 'with' out would be a major grammatical error.

Having traveled extensively in Canada as a tourist, I can't imagine that our good neighbors to the north would leave the word 'with' out of the sentence. I eagerly await a response from our Canadian friends!

Cheers,
Amigo

[makaveli]

Have to agree. Sounds and is totally wrong grammatically. However, many communities appear to have errors in their modern day speech and are either oblivious to it or use it as some sort of badge!

One that springs to mind is the gang infested hoods of parts of LA etc.