Done gone and done it
I was thinking last night about this type of misuse of grammar:
“I watched him perform last night. He done really well”.
Now, as someone who has lived in the midwestern US all of his life, I can tell you that every once in a while I run into a person who talks like this. That is, they tend to mis-conjugate their verbs.
“I seen that TV show the other night”.
I think that anyone who is somewhat educated from around here would agree that if someone you were talking to said things like that, you’d mentally stereotype them in a group of…”undereducated” people? Lower class people, perhaps? I’m not sure what stereotype they belong to, but there’s definitely a cadre of people who DO talk like this.
However, I’m unsure why. What is it that causes people to mis-conjugate their verbs? Is it lack of formal education on what to properly say? Are they hearing other people talk like that and end up talking like that too? Why doesn’t more people do it?
Hit me up with your thoughts. This is baffling me.
January 13th, 2006 at 8:36 am
i’d say most learnt to talk that way from they parents.
or it could be that when you’re first learning to talk, and don’t know how grammar and whatnot works, you start to talk that way, and never learn how not to.
January 13th, 2006 at 8:39 am
“are they hearing other people talk like that?”
yes, their parents
what’s really weird is when they throw in extra verbs, like “i done seen that TV show the other night” or “i had done seen that TV show the other night” or “i was had done seen that TV show the other night”
January 13th, 2006 at 8:42 am
But why is it that particular mistake they make?
Why don’t they say things like:
“My favorite color is map”
or
“Coffee trucks my wrong”
I don’t understand why it’s just these particular verbs they mess up.
January 13th, 2006 at 9:03 am
It’s a dialect.
Not sure if it’s hillbilly, redneck, white trach, or what, but it’s definately a dialect. I borrow from various dialects a lot - I like to mix things up. Plus it sounds funny.
Also, it must be a cold day in hell for a duck to be making fun of grammar (and/or spelling).
Aww naw, hell naw.
BEEP
January 13th, 2006 at 9:06 am
I’mn not making fun, I’m asking WHY it is this particular aspect of the grammar that is being botched. They don’t teach the wrong way of doing this in school do they? So what makes it be this particular thing that is wrong?
January 13th, 2006 at 9:07 am
What’s even better is the infamous triple negative:
“We ain’t got none of them there, neither.”
Which, by the way, is a common answer to a lot of questions here in Logansport, if you can find someone that speaks English (which is becoming increasingly difficult . It’s easy to get this answer by taking two of anything into just about any store around here and asking:
You: “Hey, do you have [item A]?”
Them: “Nope.”
You: “How about this [showing item B]”
Them: “Nope, we ain’t got none of them there, neither.”
Good stuff.
January 13th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
My 0.02… It probably has something to do with the irregular conjugation. It’s easy for most words:
drive, driving, drove
vs
do, doing, did or will, am, was
January 13th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
No its “he done *real* well”, your gooder English got the best of you.
January 13th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
What blows me away is the people who say “a apple” instead of “an apple.” Isn’t the correct one easier to say? Anyway, bottom line is you grow up talkin’ like you been hearin’.
January 16th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Yes, and here in DC, it’s easy to tell when someone is from the Midwest. They say “pop” instead of “soda”, “carmel” instead of “caramel” and probably quite a few other things that I haven’t detected.
In my first few months here, I was volunteering at a local high school and asked where the “pop” machine was. No one had a clue what I was talking about…
January 16th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
I picked up a number of bad grammatical mannerisms from the South. For example, my father (who is a doctor) uses “might could” instead of “might” or “could.” It took me many months to break that one after it was pointed out to me.
Also, I think some of the issue with “I seen that…” is just laziness. It’s possible they mean to say “I *have* seen that” and they’re too lazy (or their parents were too lazy) to include “have” or its shortened version.
Finally, I agree with the dialect comment. Gramatically and colloquially correct American English is quite different from its “Queen’s English” counterpart. For example, the Brits use “an” in front of any word beginning with “h”; i.e. ‘Do you have an headache?’
And don’t get me started on the misues of Subjunctive! Stupid Clay Aiken - If I *WERE* invisible!
January 17th, 2006 at 10:03 am
good call on the subjunctive mood.