"Done " and "Seen" gaining ground!

FlutterinBantam

As an educated and well qualified person I am very concerned at the rise in the incorrect use of "done" and "seen" in daily life.

A cursory perusal through any of boards.ie's many fora would confirm that.

Any attempt to bridle and correct this appalling grammar will result in the poster being accused of being a pedant may incur the wrath of the Mod who invariably sides with the grammatically incorrect poster.

it's as easy to do it correctly as do it wrongly surely.

Next time you are looking at RTE 2 listen to Ray Houghton.
Gets the tenses wrong almost EVERY time.

Drives me fcukin mad and have to be restrained from putting my brogan thru the screen:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Permabear

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FlutterinBantam

I'll buy that.

giggsy664

Hey cletus.

Hey bob.

Guess what cletus?

What bob?

I done seen a nice auto mobile today.

The Raven.

giggsy664 wrote: »

I done seen a nice auto mobile today.

Surely ‘Noone’ speaks like that :eek:?

Who is Noone ?

Shh!! No one, Molly. No one.

FlutterinBantam

Ah !! now I get it.

Deliberate attempt to shunt thread off topic but musn't grumble,musn't grumble

The Raven.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to drive it off topic. Just an observation along the way !

I agree with you about 'done' and 'seen'. These grammatical defects have been around for many years. It is quite amazing that they continue to go unnoticed by many, especially in light of the weaknesses they create in any form of serious debate.

Permabear

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The Raven.

Yes, that one always makes me laugh. It often occurs in the middle of a contentious, political debate, when someone has to go and find a link, and suddenly says ‘Just “bare” with me for a minute’. The mind boggles. It does seem a little inappropriate.

On the subject of ‘done’, I recently thought I heard it on the radio. I was baffled at first as it appeared to have been said by a very articulate man, and it seemed highly unlikely. Then I realized that what he said was ‘I’d done’ such and such. It sounded exactly like ‘I done’.

K4t

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Next time you are looking at RTE 2 listen to Ray Houghton.
Gets the tenses wrong almost EVERY time.

Drives me fcukin mad and have to be restrained from putting my brogan thru the screen:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

Former footballers turned analysts are there for their views and opinions on football. Most footballers come from working class backgrounds and receieved little or no formal education. I don't mind their poor grammar to be honest. Ray Houghton is one of the nicest men on (and off) television.

However, I know teachers who say 'I done' etc and yes it's annoying.

FlutterinBantam

You have a good point there.

Maybe I'm too picky.

Houghton does indeed seem like a nice person and I'm not criticising him personally.

Just from a language point of view, it's amazing that he takes the opposite to the correct word all the time in certain situations.

Hagar

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Drives me fcukin mad and have to be restrained from putting my brogan thru the screen:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

*Cough* Through *Cough*

FlutterinBantam

Go back to bed.

Havermeyer

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

As an educated and well qualified person I am very concerned at the rise in the incorrect use of "done" and "seen" in daily life.

A cursory perusal through any of boards.ie's many fora would confirm that.

Any attempt to bridle and correct this appalling grammar will result in the poster being accused of being a pedant may incur the wrath of the Mod who invariably sides with the grammatically incorrect poster.

it's as easy to do it correctly as do it wrongly surely.

Next time you are looking at RTE 2 listen to Ray Houghton.
Gets the tenses wrong almost EVERY time.

Drives me fcukin mad and have to be restrained from putting my brogan thru the screen:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

While I do agree with the points you have made, your post lacks proper educated structure. :P

spurious

I seen him when he done it.

Hagar

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Go back to bed.

Will you be up in a minute? Last time you said you would and I waited and waited...

Yakuza

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

As an educated and well-qualified

Fixed that for you

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

A cursory perusal through any of boards.ie's many fora would confirm that.

I agree with the main gist of your thread (seen/done) etc. as well as seeming inability of a good chunk of the population on these boards (and, by extension, the populace in general) to use you're/your their/there/they're etc correctly, but I think you're going over the top with "fora"...we're not using Latin, but English, so I'd say it's acceptable to use forums instead.

A.Partridge

Commonly heard uses for 'done' and 'seen' these days.....

"Are you done yet?" :mad:

"Seen as we are going to be neighbours...":mad:


The first one really drives me crazy. It seems to have drifted into conversation with the 'Sunny Delight/ Sabrina the teenage witch' generation.


Oh, and the Sunny Delights are also the people who managed to replace the term 'I said" with "like".

So we hear phrases such as "So I like walked up to him and said like what's up? And he's like "whatever' , so I'm like "ok" and he says "like, stalk much?"...etc.


That's another craze.

Just place any verb or adverb before the word 'much' to give two word questions such as:

Stalk much?
Nag much?

:mad:

r3nu4l

Tense mangling isn't just a problem of poor education. In some populations (admittedly mostly working class or the 'underclass' [hate that term]) it's endemic.

Take Essex for example. A good friend of mine is Essex born and bred, she went to Uni and became a science teacher. This is how our conversations sometimes go:

Me: I was at Bluewater last weekend
Her: Oh was ya?
Me: Er, yes, I visited the Apple store and went to the cinema.
Her: Is ya going there this weekend then?
Me: Probably not
Her: Yeah, well I were gonna go myself but I forgot my sister will be away...

She's educated but from a working class background where absolutely everyone around her uses this mode of speech.

Whether we like it or not, language is changing and this appears to be one of those changes. How can we slow or reverse this change? I'm not sure we can. Years ago you couldn't get a job on radio or television in England if you didn't use received pronunciation. RP uses not just correct pronunciation but also correct syntax and grammar structures.

These days that's considered too snobby and distanced from the 'yoof, innit' so people from all backgrounds and regions in the UK are chosen to present shows. The result is, as has already been pointed out, that the use of incorrect tenses is reinforced. It has also been noted that even the Queens patterns of speech and inflection have changed from solely RP to include some modes of Estuary English, although it'll probably be some time before we see her mangling her tenses

The fact that 'celebrity' culture in the UK and possibly Ireland seems to encompass soccer players (mostly working class), reality show contestants (mostly working class) etc, means that their use of language is endorsed even further.

Battling it means not just better teaching but a massive increase in the amount of reading that's done. Reading books that reinforce this mode of speech would have to be discouraged but then many of these people who find it difficult to read books in the first place would find it difficult to engage with characters and keep reading.

We may just be stuck with this and indeed in 100 years time it may be that some posh professor of historical linguistics will read threads like this and say:

'I say Jeeves, Dem peple wat did live back den was well weird, isn't u tinkin dat too?'.
^
|
Sad to think that this could happen but if that's the posh dude, imagine what the working class of the future will speak like

Permabear

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Yakuza

Great post. I couldn't have said it better myself.

r3nu4l wrote: »

'I say Jeeves, Dem peple wat did live back den was well weird, isn't u tinkin dat too?'.

Don't you mean "proper weird"?
Ali G (and a host of other folks on TV) have a lot to answer for!

The Raven.

donegalfella wrote: »

I notice this cavalier attitude toward grammar, usage, and tenses everywhere on the BBC now. Watching the Masters snooker final last weekend, I was constantly irked by such remarks as "Ronnie's playing as good as I've ever seen 'im play,..."quote]

I do agree with you on this. The problem is that some of these lapses are highly infectious, especially when they roll off the tongue more easily as in 'I've ever seen 'im play'. So as not to go off topic here, I am opening a new thread about the 'h' pronunciation.

Permabear

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jmbkay

couldn't agree more, dudes. I have seen this done too many times, I just cant bear it.

The Raven.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Yes, that is expremely irritating. It is misused a lot in films: 'Ya did good.' :eek:!!

"Selby's ran out of position on that last red."

Is that supposed to mean 'Selby has run out of position on that last red'? I don't understand most game terminologies. Is it used here in the same way as some people incorrectly say 'She's sat there...'?

Permabear

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The Raven.

I see. Thank you for that, Donegalfella. No wonder I didn't understand. He means the ball, but refers to the player !! I think it's more the dull, monotonous voice of the comentator that puts me off, rather than the actual game.

Permabear

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thequarefellow

I am training to be a primary school teacher at the moment and I keep hearing 'I seen' and 'I done' from my fellow students. I was compelled to browse the forums to see if others are equally irritated by this.

looksee

I'd suggest you were impelled rather than compelled...but I agree with you about 'seen' and 'done'

Rubberchikken

I think it comes over from british tv. Thats my tuppence ha'penny worth anyways.

Reati

I seen this thread in the recents and can't for the life of me see why the OP done started it