What do you think about common mistakes?

[Glizdka]

I'd like to bring up two examples here.

(1) "Relax, your doing fine."
(2) "If you would've come earlier, you wouldn't have missed it."

Both of these mistakes are very common. I've heard and seen native speakers making them on a regular basis.

Number one is just a spelling mistake coming from the same pronunciation of your and you're (not sure whether it's true for all accents). I understand that the contraction you're is required because of how English grammar works. In the end, we're saying "you are doing" → "you're doing", but a huge portion of native speakers seems to not care about it. When speaking, they're saying /jɔː(r)/; when writing, they're just transcribing it. After all, writing is just a way of transcribing what is uttered. It's very common to "read 'out loud', but in your head". As a matter of fact, unlearning it is one of the first things you need to do when you want to learn speed reading. So when you see "Relax, your doing fine.", you read it "Relax, /jɔː(r)/ doing fine.", which makes perfect sense just as it does when it's uttered.

What's your attitude towards keeping both you're and your, or replacing both of them by just one, same word?

Number two is a full on grammar mistake. I understand it is important to distinguish between the condition clause, and the consequence clause, so the grammar in these clauses needs to differ. However, the conjunction 'if' already does this job, and the zero conditional (e.g. "people die if you cut off their heads") proves that just 'if' is enough to indicate which clause is which.

How much of a mistake for you is using "would've past participle" in both clauses? How much more difficult is it to understand such a sentence?

Ultimately, what do you think about the cases when the theory does not match with what can be observed? Is it grammar rules that should be revised because of how frequently they're broken in common speech, or is it those people, who should revise how they speak to follow the rules?

 

[GoesStation]

I'll address your final question. It doesn't matter whether I think my sister-in-law should stop saying things like If you would've come earlier, you wouldn't have missed it. She will continue to use that construction, along with millions of other Americans. If at some point it becomes so widespread that it would be ridiculous to argue that it's wrong, grammar experts will gradually stop labeling it "non-standard".

 

[Glizdka]

If you would've come earlier, you wouldn't have missed it sounds a little unnatural to me, because we don't see/hear it very often in BrE.

However, If you'd have/had've come earlier, you wouldn't have missed it seems normal and natural to me.

I've never seen or heard had've. Does this mean "If you had've come..." is natural? What about "If you'd've come..."?
Could the 'mistake' be caused by the fact either 'had' or 'would' can be contracted to 'd?

 

[Rover_KE]

I'd like to bring up two examples here.

You'll get quicker answers and avoid cluttering up the thread by asking about only one point per thread.

Make sure your threads have specific titles, such as 'Relax, your/you're doing fine' and 'If you would've come earlier'.

 

[Raymott]

(2) "If you would've come earlier, you wouldn't have missed it."

I absolute detest this usage, unless it does actually mean "If you would have come earlier...". I've mentioned this before. From memory, no Americans agreed with me, and even British people weren't sympathetic. So, the distinction is probably lost.
I'm still concerned about "would of", which I think needs correction whenever it's polite and safe to mention it.
I don't have strong feelings about "had've come", but I say "If I had come ...". Again, you might still see "If you had of come ..."

As far as "your/you're" and "there/their/they're" what can you do? Newly graduated school teachers in Australia (and I'm sure other places) get these wrong.

I agree with Rover that each of these grammatical questions could easily accommodate its own thread. (Oh, and "its/it's).

 

[emsr2d2]

Whenever I hear "If you would've ...", I want to scream!

 

[probus]

Whenever I hear "If you would've ...", I want to scream!

Me too. But here in North America at least, it is just part of the unstoppable juggernaut of actual usage. As GoesStation pointed out his sister-in-law uses it. It is not very widespread, so all we can do is avoid it hope that it does not become more common.

 

[GoesStation]

Whenever I hear "If you would've ...", I want to scream!

I wouldn't say it, but it's so much a part of the local vernacular that I barely notice it.

 

[Tdol]

How about would of come, which is far from uncommon?

 

[probus]

To me, "would of" and "would've" are the same or at least interchangeable in this context. Both are so obviously wrong it hardly matters which the speaker prefers. They are like antibiotic resistant germs --- here to stay because there is no cure.

 

[Glizdka]

I guess "would of" is a product of the "bone apple tea" effect. It sounds similar enough to "would've" to be mistaken for it. The funniest mistake of this kind I've seen so far was when somebody wrote "minus well" instead of "might as well".

 

[probus]

In light of Piscean's remarks on the generations I decided to poll my own children. I asked simply "Which is better English?

1. If I would've known, things would have turned out differently.

2. If I would of known, things ..."

The results surprised and disappointed me. Daughter born in 1978, professor of medicine, preferred 1 and failed to note that 2 is wrong. Daughter born in 1980, M.A. in English and a writer and editor by profession said she would correct both to 'If I had known ..." only if she was being paid to do so. She would tolerate 1 in casual writing and barely notice it in spoken English.

So much for my assertion that both are obviously incorrect..

 

[Glizdka]

Thank you all for your insights (especially Piscean, this was one of the most enjoyable to read pieces of writing I've read in a long time).

I've been thinking about some of your reactions. You, as professional teachers, obviously have a different view on the matter. I understand it's frustrating to see fellow native speakers notoriously violate the rules teaching of which is your job, and I do sympathize.

However, don't you think that insisting on keeping the rules nobody follows does more harm than good to the language (for example leading to historic spelling, or reinforcing obsolete rules)? Language is something that forms naturally. Except for conlags, nobody sits down and makes up the rules for everyone to follow. The job of a linguist is to figure out why people speak the way they do, and make it possible and easy to understand and learn how language works. The job of a language teacher is to explain how and why the rules should be followed. I believe that if the theory doesn't match reality, it's the theory that's wrong and should be revised.

 

[SoothingDave]

I agree with GS, that the distinction in the tenses is being lost. This doesn't bother me too much.

But the difference between "your" and "you're" is semantic and should be preserved in writing.

 

[GoesStation]

I read this in an obituary in yesterday's New York Times: "'If we would have moved off this corner, this whole community would have been gone a long time ago,' she told Carol Allen, a biographer."

The woman being quoted was quite old at the time. The article doesn't mention when the quote was recorded but she would have been in her eighties at least. She was an African American from a small town in Louisiana, with a high school diploma which represented more than the usual amount of education her peers would have had. She actually moved to New Orleans as a girl to attend high school because at the time, "... her hometown had no schools for African-Americans past sixth grade ...." Using "would have" in place of the past perfect may be common in African-American Vernacular English, though the Wikipedia article on the subject doesn't mention that trait.

 

[jutfrank]

Using "would have" in place of the past perfect may be common in African-American Vernacular English

I've been paying close attention to this particular error for several years now, and I have considered that it could perhaps reasonably be considered a part of AAVE, since it seems (based only on my personal observations) to be common among, and as far as I can tell overrepresented in, African-American speakers. Having said that, I do continue to notice it in all kinds of American speech, across a range of ages, genders and social groups, which leads me to believe that it is a full-blown feature of American English, and probably has been for some time.

It does remain distinctly unBritish in this form, however—I've only ever heard one native British English speaker use it. The form that is used ubiquitously here in the UK is very similar, but also different in an important and interesting way: instead of fully articulating the would in its strong form, it is only ever contracted to 'd. This means that you would be very likely to hear If we'd have moved off this corner ... but not If we would have moved off this corner ...

What makes this particularly fascinating to me is that the contracted 'd has come to be assumed as a weak form of had instead of would, and so when articulated in negative clauses, you get If we hadn't've moved ... Now, where the erroneous American forms would have and wouldn't have are at least grammatical as chunks in themselves, the British versions had have and hadn't have are not, making them in my opinion impossible to justify.

I think that this is an interesting difference in that it is far easier to conceive that such an error could ever become fully accepted as standard in US English than in British English. Although I do believe, much like in the biological sphere, that language change is effected through mutation and replication, I think that those mutations such as had have, which violate certain deeply structural grammatical rules, will always remain as 'errors', no matter how commonplace they may become.

 

[Raymott]

"Now, where the erroneous American forms would have and wouldn't have are at least grammatical as chunks in themselves..."
Yes, but I find it impossible to justify using "If you would have" to mean "If you had", since it already has a different meaning. If "If you would have ..." were otherwise meaningless, then it might be acceptable. But it's semantically wrong. On the other hand "If you had have" doesn't mean something else, so it's not likely to be misinterpreted.

 

[GoesStation]

I never thought about this before, but I really have no idea what I'm contracting when I say, for example, If you hadn't-a done that, you'd have nothing to worry about now. It feels like an elided hadn't've, which doesn't make sense. If it's really hadn't a-done that, this is the only participle that I attach a- to.

 

[Glizdka]

Could it be that the English language treats a sentence that is limited in occurence differently? Coming from a language that doesn't use either inversion or the perfect aspect, I've noticed that most diviations from "default grammar" can be found in conditional sentences (eg. "If I were...", "...as if it were to...", "...whether it be...") and 'negative sentences' (I'm not sure about the term. I mean e.g. "...nor did it...", "Not only was it...", "Never have we...")

Maybe at some point, one person wanted to convey a specific, limited meaning, and (not knowing how it was supposed to be) they made up something that sounded "Yeah, just about OK." Then they just stuck with it, and it started spreading. I'm interested in how Monty Python played with using language to create the sense of ridiculous. Poetry also uses unconventional language, for emotional purposes. If your great grandfather would have been telling (;-)) you stories that were passionate, and/or hillarious, you would probably have liked them enough to remember how they were said.


Could you tell me something about "If that could've been..."? Could it be any related to "If that would've been..."?

 

[probus]

If they had/ve (;-)) appeared in the lists of tenses drawn up by grammarians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we wouldn't have questioned them.

As GoesStation pointed out, when we say "had-a done something" as we very often do in AmE, we don't even know what the -a stands for. It is nevertheless a standard part of the spoken dialect, as surely as if it was supported by authoritative grammarians.