"Done " and "Seen" gaining ground!

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.

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?'.
^
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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

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!

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.

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