Tuesday 24 July 2007
Should of, would of, could of...
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To paraphrase the milky-eyed songstress Gabrielle (where is she now?), "Should of, would of, could of are the last words of a fool". At least they would be if everyone would just agree to give me Ultimate Power.
That's another thing that annoys me - why haven't I been given Ultimate Power yet?
**UPDATE** - I've just remembered it was Beverley Knight who did "Shoulda Woulda Coulda" (we've briefly touched on lyric grammar so I won't get too het-up about the deliberate misspelling - although if I had a cat, it would get kicked tonight). Nevertheless the point about Gabrielle's low profile still stands.
When I get the time, I'll write a proper post on this with references and everything.
But for now I simply want to voice my displeasure at receiving the following sentence in a work email:I guess that's something we should of considered at the timeUrgh. Writing 'should've' is fine, a bit colloquial but fine. Writing 'should of' however, that's a death sentence. No trial, no jury: just death. That's street justice, GrammarBlog style!
To paraphrase the milky-eyed songstress Gabrielle (where is she now?), "Should of, would of, could of are the last words of a fool". At least they would be if everyone would just agree to give me Ultimate Power.
That's another thing that annoys me - why haven't I been given Ultimate Power yet?
**UPDATE** - I've just remembered it was Beverley Knight who did "Shoulda Woulda Coulda" (we've briefly touched on lyric grammar so I won't get too het-up about the deliberate misspelling - although if I had a cat, it would get kicked tonight). Nevertheless the point about Gabrielle's low profile still stands.
posted by Gez at 5:37 pm
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6 Comments:
...should have...?
It's scary how many people do this. What makes it much, much worse is that this crime occurs so often in their speech. It's not just a written grammatical slip, it's a total ignorance of tense.
It makes me grind my teeth in rage.
I disagree actually, you're allowed to slip in speech - it's only a temporary braodcast It's more important to be accurate written English.
"...should have...?"
Erm, yes paul. That was the point. Welcome to GrammarBlog by the way, please keep up the contributions and keep an eye out for grammar abuse.
"It's more important to be accurate written English."
Indeed it is.
I think the anonymous poster may have been being all ironic, like.
"braodcast"
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