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The great 'HAVE' or 'OF' debate

  • 05-07-2019 11:02am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 61 ✭✭Curious Scot


    Which is correct:

    Could OF; Should OF; Would OF

    or
    Could HAVE; Should HAVE; Would HAVE?

    As far as I'm concerned, it's 'HAVE' all the way!!:D


Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 27,939 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    It isn't even remotely a debate, 'of' is simply wrong. It is a result of people saying could've and other people hearing it as could of.


  • Administrators, Entertainment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,703 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭hullaballoo


    Not a debate. Should of etc is incorrect.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 473 ✭✭Pissartist


    Could have should have ect


  • Registered Users Posts: 730 ✭✭✭thejaguar


    This could of being so interesting....


  • Registered Users Posts: 22,198 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    Pissartist wrote: »
    Could have should have ect

    You’ve gone and done it now!

    Let the great ‘is punctuation actually necessary’ debate begin!


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  • Registered Users Posts: 673 ✭✭✭Sharp MZ700


    thejaguar wrote: »
    This could of being so interesting....

    Have course it could of.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,141 ✭✭✭Yakuza


    What about shoulda / coulda / woulda? :p


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,514 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    When somebody says 'Sh'we go shopping tomorrow? / Sh'we invite your parents for dinner?' are they saying 'Should we' or 'Shall we'?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,062 ✭✭✭davedanon


    Grammar: The difference between knowing your sh*t, and knowing you're sh*t.


    The motto on my personal coaster.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,523 ✭✭✭Sonny noggs


    davedanon wrote: »
    Grammar: The difference between knowing your sh*t, and knowing you're sh*t.


    The motto on my personal coaster.

    I know my sh*t, now you can too:


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  • Registered Users Posts: 557 ✭✭✭Mearings


    Which is correct:

    Could OF; Should OF; Would OF

    or
    Could HAVE; Should HAVE; Would HAVE?

    As far as I'm concerned, it's 'HAVE' all the way!!:D


    Come off of it.


  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 10,167 Mod ✭✭✭✭artanevilla


    Language evolves all the time.




  • Language evolves all the time.

    Yes, but in this instance "have" is grammatically correct and "of" plain wrong. The contraction "could've" can throw people for a loop based on the phonetic.


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,136 ✭✭✭✭is_that_so


    It's just people transcribing the weak form pronunciation of have, /ǝv/ in this case, which is also a weak form of of


  • Registered Users Posts: 870 ✭✭✭barney shamrock


    Stick 'could of' or 'would of' in your cv and see how far you get.


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,211 ✭✭✭✭lawred2


    Which is correct:

    Could OF; Should OF; Would OF

    or
    Could HAVE; Should HAVE; Would HAVE?

    As far as I'm concerned, it's 'HAVE' all the way!!:D

    debate?

    There's just the uneducated way and the educated way.


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,918 ✭✭✭✭Loafing Oaf


    I used to assume people saying 'could of' were making a deliberate mistake like spelling the 'teh' but seemingly not


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 61 ✭✭Curious Scot


    Stick 'could of' or 'would of' in your cv and see how far you get.

    I agree with you there. However, I know some people in jobs where a lot of writing or typing of letters is involved who always use ‘of’ instead of ‘have’! (This drives me mad!:mad:)
    One woman in particular even uses ‘of’ (quite clearly) when she’s speaking at meetings etc! (This makes me even madder! :mad::mad:)
    So, in response to your comment, it seems that the use of ‘of’ instead of ‘have’ is acceptable in a CV.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,692 ✭✭✭donegal_man


    Pissartist wrote: »
    Could have should have ect

    Do you mean "...etc"? It's a contraction of "et cetera" NOT "ec tetera".
    I tried to ignore it, I really really tried but I just can't.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,062 ✭✭✭davedanon


    He's saying someone needs electro-convulsive therapy. Bit harsh if you ask me, but each to their own.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,141 ✭✭✭Yakuza


    davedanon wrote: »
    He's saying someone needs electro-convulsive therapy. Bit harsh if you ask me, but each to their own.

    If it fixes the your/you're, they're/there/their, could have/could of, saw/seen and other plethora of errors that abound, I'd hear him out... :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,062 ✭✭✭davedanon


    "I seen" is peculiarly Irish, and one of my pet hates. Everyone here says it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,939 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    davedanon wrote: »
    "I seen" is peculiarly Irish, and one of my pet hates. Everyone here says it.

    I don't say it. I would say I know many more people who do not say than do say it.

    I don't agree that it is peculiarly Irish either, along with 'I done' it is very common in England, it is just bad/lazy English.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,062 ✭✭✭davedanon


    Hmm. I'll take your word for it. But I still think it's very commonly used. And its brother "I done it", as you say.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,939 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    I am not disputing that it is irritatingly commonly used, but it is simply not true to say that 'everyone' says it. Yes, I am being a bit pedantic, but this is the English forum and we are in pursuit of clarity in English.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,237 ✭✭✭mcmoustache


    Language evolves all the time.

    Certain aspects of it but not something as basic as this.

    Take the following two sentences:

    "I eat fish"

    "I could eat fish"

    The first sentence doesn't need an explanation but look at the second one - it's the conditional version of the first. Typically it would be followed by " if some condition(s) hold(s)" or " under some circumstances". It would look something like:

    "I could eat fish if I had some".

    More examples include:

    "I could buy fish if I had money"
    "I could catch fish if I had a fishing rod"
    "I could sell fish if I had a retail licence"

    As you can see, the word "could" is how we make verbs conditional. We can ignore the actual conditions to keep this simple but the important part is the first part as the actual condition can be implicit.


    We can also do this with the past participle. The past participle typically takes the form of "I have [past_participle]". For example, "I have been", "I have seen", "I have arrived".

    In our scenario, you would say "I have eaten".

    We can also make this conditional and when we do, it looks like:

    "I could have eaten".

    As always, it's a verb being made conditional ("have"). This is how past participles are made conditional and it's also done like this in other languages such as in French.


    Let's go back to where this thread started and take the following abomination and deconstruct it:

    "I could of eaten"

    What does it even mean? Well, we can see that it's at least an attempt to make a verb conditional so let's make the sentence non-conditional and see if we can make sense of it.

    "I of eaten"

    As you can see, these three words, while actually words themselves, make no sense. It's word salad.

    For a simpler example and using the same idea, what about this sentence?

    "I could have" which is the conditional version of "I have". If you replace "have" with "of", you get:

    "I could of" and the non-conditional form "I of".

    As you can see it becomes more and more absurd the more you think about it.

    This is why it's not one of those aspects of a language that change over time such as spelling. Ultimately, languages need to be able to say something and "I of" does not.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,062 ✭✭✭davedanon


    Depends on the circles in which one moves. I live in south Dublin, and the overwhelming majority of 'ordinary' people in and around Tallaght and Firhouse favour 'I seen' and 'I done'.

    I don't say it, despite being from De Northside. Irony.


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