YSK it's either "should have" or "should've". "Should of" is incorrect

ronaldtemp1@lemmy.world to You Should Know@lemmy.world – 249 points –

Why YSK?

The first person who typed "should of" probably heard of it in real life that was meant to be "should've", they typed "should of" online and readers thought that it's grammatically correct to say "should of" which is in fact wrong and it became widespread throughout the years on Reddit.

I hope something could start to change.

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I'm not a grammar nazi, but "should of" is driving me up the wall.

I know right, I know people make careless grammatical mistakes all the time, including me, which is completely fine but people outright thought that "should of" is correct and use it all the time starts to get annoying

Same! I rather see shoulda than should of.

But more importantly, where do you stand on the Oxford comma?

It's mandatory in a series, only. Something is only a series of there are three. Plenty of time the cadence and diction sounds like a series but isn't.

If the first two or last two are antecedent to one another, you don't need the comma. Said another way, if the first or last noun is not severed from the second, you need a serial command to indicate that.

It depends on what you're trying to say.

Oh, Dude! I'm 99% for it. On the night before my uncle's funeral, while labeling photos for the slideshow, two of my cousins got into an Oxford comma fight. John, Joe, and Jeff. Take out the second comma. But it's right! But it looks stupid! Fight! Fight! Fight!

Ah funerals, people really get upset over the smallest things due to all the pain from the loss. I don't want to ever go through that again but I know it's just a part of life. :(

Yeah. Had to do it twice in the last year. Sucks.

Damn man, I'm really sorry for your losses. I've experienced something similar in the past. It's like when one person dies, more follow shortly. I feel like when people loose their loved ones, its like some peoples bodies when they are old just give up as the person they loved disappeared.

I strongly prefer it but it's not something I feel is worth correcting someone on.

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Even as a non native speaker "should of" feels really weird to me, it just doesn't make sense. Is this a mistake English speakers do as well?

Pretty sure it's actually one of those mistakes that is made more often by native speakers than non-native speakers

It's like theyre/theire/they're - in my experience it's mostly native speakers confusing them.

Yeah, I’ve seen have in textbooks way more than ’ve and it’s baked into my brain... This mistake only happens if you hear the word before seeing it written.

It's because "should've" and "should of" are pronounced the same. It doesn't make sense because they're just writing what they hear instead of thinking "I'm using the contraction of the auxiliary verb 'have'"..

It's because you're a non native speaker. Should of is a phonetic mistake that can be traced back to repeating words you hear over and over again before you know what they actually mean

Nice one. Who’d’ve guessed.

😱 You are triggering my fear of more than 1 apostrophes in a word

It was the Victorians that decided double contractions and double negatives should be no-nos. Some nonsense about making language have rules like mathematics. Don't listen to Victorians.

Y'all'd've guessed.

(Reddit has previously informed me that y'all'd've is the winner in these complex contractions.)

I’m certainly no grammar freak and English also isn’t my native language but this deives me insane… Same with your vs you’re… it’s soooo easy…

Yeah once you understand the concept it's not too crazy. But it is still crazy.

language is full of idiosyncrasies like this (my favorite is an ekename -> a nekename -> a nickname. see Wikipedia). it's perfectly conceivable that should have would be fully re-analyzed in speech like that, so the proper form of the verb to have would become of after should

Same deal with the word "Apron". It started out as napron, so people would say a napron which turned into an apron

I could care less.

My in-laws and I have a Signal group where we share fun spellings and pronunciations. We call it "udder mayham." It's fun.

I could care less.

This one is popular.

Awesome! That means you'll make a mental note and avoid making the mistake in the future?

That, or this is clearly a potentially intentional (or unintentional) misuse of the saying "I could'nt care less"

Damn I should of known this

Shoulda coulda & woulda are all intentional uses of slang, IMO and also exceptable online discourse.

Crazy thing is, it’s getting widespread acceptance, and will probably accepted as grammatically correct in a few years.

Not until the definition of the word "of" changes. It is not a synonym for the word "have," nor will be anytime soon.

Perhaps, when speaking, accent, mush-mouthed laziness, or plain ignorance will confuse "should have" and "should of", but one is objectively correct, and one is not.

Not until the definition of the word “of” changes.

Well that's what's happening here isn't it. It's a word that is potentially gaining an additional use as a result of reanalysis. Whether it sticks around long term remains to be seen, but language is defined by usage and it's foolish to pretend there's such a thing as objectively correct. Already the use of the verb 'to have' to form the perfect in this case is quite different from it's other meanings related to 'to possess'. And that's not even getting into you describing nonstandard usage as the result of 'mush-mouthed laziness' which is a whole nother can of worms.

A bit like how putting "would" in a third conditional if-clause has become standard in US English ("We wouldn't have been late if we would have taken a taxi").

I know language evolves but it doesn't stop my left eye from twitching whenever I hear it.

Given the number of offenses I see in books and magazines, I'd say that the only thing left is for the descriptivist grammarians and lexicographers to record it.

Typing "should of" is a sign of failing to understand the basics of English grammar.

Eh, it's just shifting of how written work is relfective our spoken word. It's pretty rare for me to use a stronger "ah" sound when saying "would have" most of the time defaulting to a softer schwa sound, which sounds almost exactly how how "of" sounds. English has been changing and evolving for centuries. There's even major epochs like the great vowel shift. Hell if Shakespeare were around today and making the drastic changes to the english language like he did back then he'd be crucified by internet prescriptivists for using English improperly.

If you'd like something a bit more modern, Mark Twain broke english rules all the time in his writings and he's considered one of, if not, the greatest American writers.

Shakespeare did not "make" changes, he's just a very good record of changes that had taken place.

That us just incorrect, his plays marked major shifts in the style of writing for the english language, many writers after him adopted his style and the new mechanics he was making in his plays.

https://online.maryville.edu/blog/william-shakespeare-influence/

It is not incorrect.

his plays marked major shifts in the style of writing for the english language,

True, that is perfectly in line with what I said and contradicts the statement that he "made changes. "making changes" is not the same thing as "marking major shifts".

many writers after him adopted his style and the new mechanics he was making in his plays.

Many would imitate his style. But we also know very little about the styles that influenced Shakespeare. New mechanics? Not sure what you mean by that. He did not alter the grammar of English nor did he invent words. When people claim he "invented" words or phrases, what they really mean is that his works are the first recorded example. That is not the same thing as "inventing."

I'm sorry but it doesn't fully work here. 'of' phonetically should not be spelled with a 'f', so they are already using a word that is not pronounced as it is written, might as well use "would've", which removes the part that isn't pronounced as it was traditionally "ha-", but at least it's still correct.

They use 'of' because they don't understand (or pay attention to) the grammar of what they're saying.

They use 'of' because they don't understand (or pay attention to) the grammar of what they're saying.

Sure. Because it sounds identical. " 've" and "of" are both pronounced /əv/, hence the confusion. Native speakers write what they hear. If you ever want to stop errors like this, the only solution is spelling reform.

Of course, if we had spelling reform, that would cause even more errors lol

English spelling errors are common because English is not written phonetically. If you fix that, you reduce the errors, not increase them. Spelling mistakes would still occur to some degree (ultimately because one dialect's pronunciation must be chosen for the written standard) but it would still be an improvement.

Imagine if anglophone students could learn to read and write in 2 years like their peers in Spanish and German speaking countries (many dozens of others) instead of 10.

You're forgetting the transition period where we change a standard ppl are used to, and also that it'll be impossible to make orthography match phonics bc different accents and dialectes of english all pronounce things differently

Edit: and also I think Spanish and German speaking counties probably just have better education systems

I never thought that these two could be pronounced the same. I pronounce of as in office whereas 've is either pronounced as in have or as in effective (or more like a mix between that and e sound and an "ö" from german) depending on how quick I want to say it.

I never thought that these two could be pronounced the same.

Yes, English spelling is very misleading.

I pronounce of as in office

That would be a mistake in all dialects of English. It is always pronounced with a /v/ sound and the vowel is a schwa. 've is also a schwa plus /v/.

Anyone else also say "shouldn't've" instead of "shouldn't have"? No? Just me?

“shouldn’t’ve”

In Canada - we will've stolen it from Ireland or Scotland - we'll jam three contractions onto the end of a word. I forget which case it is, but I run across or write it almost weekly. It's like a "will have been" kind of super compound phrase.

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While it is true that "should of" etc. can easily originate from a confusion between "'ve'" and unstressed "of", which sound identical, the statement

"Should of" is incorrect

itself is at least a bit misleading and prescriptivist in its generality.

Interestingly, there seem to be at least some native English speakers who genuinely do say "should of" (with a stressed "of") sometimes. This paper for example argues that people who say "should of" really do use a grammatical construction of the form modal verb + of + past participle. One argument the author mentions is that this would also explain the words "woulda", "coulda" and "shoulda", since "of"->"a" is quite common in general (e.g. "kind of" -> "kinda"), but "'ve"->"a" basically doesn't occur elsewhere (e.g. no one says "I'a" or "you'a" instead of "I've" or "you've"). Another is that the reverse mistake, i.e. using "'ve'" in place of "of" (e.g. "kind've"), is much rarer, which is a clear difference to e.g. the situation with "they're"/"their"/"there", where people use these words in place of the others in all combinations frequently. I recommend this blog article for a much longer discussion.

Also, whether genuine mistake (which it almost certainly is in many cases, although probably not all) or different grammatical construction, YSK that "should of" etc. didn't just become popular recently, but have been used for centuries. E.g. John Keats wrote in a letter in 1814: "Had I known of your illness I should not of written in such fiery phrase in my first Letter.". Many more examples (some older as well) can be found e.g. here or here.

TL;DR: While in many cases "should of" etc. can well be a mistake, originating from the fact that it sounds identical to "should've" when unstressed, there is some interesting linguistic evidence that at least in some dialects of English native speakers really do say "should of" etc. (i.e. in those cases it is not a mistake, merely non-standard/dialectal).

Isn't "have" either an auxiliary verb or verb and "of" a preposition?

Are these acceptable? If yes, why? If not, why not?

  • I of heard that story before.

  • Diane of already gone.

  • John ofn't phoned, of he?

  • I ofn't visited London before.

  • Of you seen Roz?

  • Of she been invited?

  • They still ofn't of any news when I spoke to them yesterday.

I don't know man, Oxford Dictionary (click Grammar Point to expand) says that https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/have_2

A common mistake is to write ‘could of’ instead of could have or could've

I could of told you that.

I could've told you that.

The reason for the mistake is that the pronunciation of ’ve is the same as that of of when it is not stressed. This is a common error but it is definitely considered wrong in standard English.

Isn't "have" either an auxiliary verb or verb and "of" a preposition?

Yes.

Are these acceptable? If yes, why? If not, why not?

No, because you constructed them by merely replacing the verb "have" by the preposition "of" in situations which have nothing to do with "of" after "should"/"would"/"could". I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, since neither I nor the people I cited ever claimed that this should work in the first place. The claim of in particular the author of the first paper I cited is that for some speakers there seems to be a novel construction modal verb + "of" + past participle, not that the preposition "of" has the same function as "have" in this case or in any other (in this case, the novel construction as a whole would have more or less, but not entirely the same function as modal verb + "have" + past participle, but "of" would still be just a preposition).

I don't know man, Oxford Dictionary (click Grammar Point to expand) says that [...] it is definitely considered wrong in standard English.

Yes, it certainly is considered wrong in standard English, but the interesting thing is that in some non-standard dialects there might be genuinely a novel grammatical construction which actually uses the preposition "of". I mean, you don't need to find that interesting, but I do. And if that is indeed the case, it would mean that the speakers of those dialects are not making a purely orthographic mistake like when people confuse "they're" and "their", for example, but are rather speaking or typing in their dialect.

I don’t know man, Oxford Dictionary ...

Tells us what's popular; sometimes also what happens to be correct.

"Should of" is grammatically incorrect, regardless of whether the user/speaker is aware of its incorrectness. It's a fact, and a fact per se cannot be misleading. It's as simple as that. Linguistic conventions, as you've illustrated, can be formed over time, but that again doesn't take away from the fact that such usage is grammatically incorrect to begin with.

Just read the second (or the first, but that is more technical) link I shared. Some native speakers do in fact seem to say "should of" even when the "of" is stressed, so in their dialect it would be grammatical.

...the reason "in some dialects of English native speakers really do say 'should of' etc" is phonetics. Kids hear "should've" and repeat it phonetically, before learning the actual words or their meaning. Combine that with the awful state of education and literacy in the USA (and other countries etc) and voila, you've got some armchair internet expert justifying it with some big words trying a weeeee bit too hard to make it work.

Then you've got teachers who still gaf and know their shit who will correct this before middle/high school, and no, last I checked it was never added to the dictionary or considered correct. Language of course is living and ever changing, but the line must be drawn somewhere lest we devolve into shouting and grunts like neanderthals

Kids hear “should’ve” and repeat it phonetically,

This is the failure of "no child left behind"; it seems that's all it did !

the reason “in some dialects of English native speakers really do say ‘should of’ etc” is phonetics.

What the author of the first link claims (and the second link explains in a more accessible way), is that it's not just that for everyone. Like some native speakers really do say "of" sometimes, even when it's stressed and doesn't sound like "'ve" at all. So for them it wouldn't just be a spelling mistake, but a different grammatical construction.

last I checked it was never added to the dictionary

Some dictionaries (e.g. Merriam-Webster) actually do list "of" as an alternate spelling of "have" (not in the sense of a genuinely different grammatical construction though).
Obviously it's not considered standard by anyone, which is also why teachers call it incorrect, who (should) teach the standard dialects.

Language of course is living and ever changing, but the line must be drawn somewhere lest we devolve into shouting and grunts like neanderthals

Language changes whether you and I like it or not, and efforts to stop that from happening are generally unsuccessful. You can also rest assured that a simple change in what is considered correct grammar or spelling (which, as far as I know, nobody has been suggesting in this case so far, but it seems like that would be the "worst-case" scenario from your perspective) would not lead to us or language "devolving". Also, while we don't know anything precise about how Neanderthals spoke, most likely they sounded more or less like us and did not communicate by "shouting and grunts".

should of is probably a product of phonetic typing (those who just type the letters that match the internal audio) or when siri first launched voice typing and no one bothered to check it. Edit: Should of should've died a long time ago tbh. could do with a mini-crusade.

People writing of instead of 've is pretty well attested before Siri even existed so I doubt that has much to do with it

I'm guilty of should of, but I usually use shoulda as I tend to type how I talk, and my pronunciation is somewhat lazy.

However I'm of the opinion that as long as the point is gotten across, there is no wrong way to communicate. Alot of people actually say "should of" while speaking, and it only makes sense that they'd type that way, usually without a second thought till someone interrupts a discussion with grammar correction, which let's face it, brings NOTHING to the table.

Not wanting to be purposefully controversial, but language is a tool for communication and as long as it's understood by the target audience, then I'd say it was used effectively.

The English language doesn't have a governing body (unlike say French and Spanish) and so whatever we agree on is correct usage. "Grammatically incorrect" has long been a dog-whistle signifier for elitism (you don't have the expensive education to know what's correct) and racism (the local dialect that you speak isn't our 'prestige' version, therefore you are inferior) and I don't really like to see it. Even when those aren't your intentions when correcting people, it still rankles with me.

Not that I'd write 'should of' on my CV or anything, but it doesn't offend me any on an internet forum.

and as long as it's understood by the target audience

Duy'ou-ndarstend Diz?

Understanding written text is more difficult when the existing established conventions that impart meaning are ignored.

Sure, those conventions evolve over time, some errors are worse than others, and no one's going to write perfectly all the time. But that doesn't mean anything goes and the writer has no responsibility to write clearly and correctly.

Agree with you wholeheartedly

I perfectly understand "Duy’ou-ndarstend Diz?" but I really would not want to read this over and over again.

Of course, I don't aim to change everyone, you do you. I just want to use the opportunity to say there is a difference between "should have" and "should of".

I see your point, and in some way I agree myself. Language is always evolving, and the way English is spoken today is far off from what it was back in the day. And the way we use language tells a lot about a persons background and history. This is not something negative, this is personality and differences between people.

And it's not someone's job to change someone or everyone, but it should be accepted to correct when others are wrong. I for one like when people do this to me; I actually encourage my friends to do that to me. This is how I learn and develop my language, and should not be viewed as a negative. If I use language "wrong", I at least want to be aware of it so I can correct it if I feel the need. I think this should of been how more peoples think it about 😋

It really depends on the context whether or not it's appropriate to correct someone

Oh yes, 100%. Type of conversation and relationship between partisipants are important to consider. I just believe that the attitude that correcting someone is a negative thing is wrong. Sometimes it might be, like you say, depending on context, but not in general

True. Just because "language is descriptive" (descriptivist will always let you know) doesn't mean everyone can go freestyle with language, carelessly introducing ambiguity and miscommunication. They always say "as long as it gets the point across" but as a non-native but still pretty fluent, most of the time they don't actually get the point across.

I use this same argument against people censoring swears. Not only is it pointless, but man is it annoying to read, too.

Thanks for the info about French and Spanish governing bodies. TIL

What I'm hearing is we need to set up some kind of formal governing body to properly enforce the grammar rules of English. Maybe Hugo boss could make some uniforms.

It doesn't necessarily have to invoke that kind of imagery. Spanish has the Royal Spanish Academy and within my lifetime they have removed a couple of letters from the alphabet (ch, ll).

Ah I was just being glib to try and be humorous. Alas my "sense of humour" rarely gets the response looked for. I will keep working on it.

I slightly changed my breathing pattern after reading your comment, if that helps. Not full nose-blow-funny, but you caused a small, positive reaction. Keep it up!

English contractions are very hard and I have been trying to be better at them. For other users like me who struggle with English, text generators like the ChatGPT can help a lot if you ask them to correct for you and they will give you tips. Be careful if it is online one like ChatGPT though, it isn't private!

Also I saw or I've seen. Never I seen.

I seen.

In some regional dialect, the 've isn't voiced so it sounds like that.

As far as I know this is pretty normal in (some?) Southern American dialects, i.e. it's not wrong, just dialectal.

It may seem normal, because so many people do this. It is still incorrect, however.

That's not how linguistics works though. If people (native speakers) speak like that, it's "correct" or normal for their dialect. This doesn't mean it's "correct" in whatever is considered the "standard" dialect of the language (for English, there isn't one single standard, but de facto there are standard dialects in the English speaking countries which are taught in school and typically used in the news, newspapers etc.). But from a linguistic perspective, both "I have seen it." and "I seen it." are equally "correct" (linguists typically don't use that term in this context, rather something like "grammatical"), they just represent different dialects of English.

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You should halve your outrage at poor grammar usage.

I reflected on the the whole thing after hearing opinions from both sides of users. I now realise I don’t care as much anymore which may be a good thing.

I had a professor who would use “should of” in speech, probably because he read it so much and internalized it as being correct.

"Should've" and "should of" are pronounced the same, what are you talking about? There's no way you can mix them up in speech. Are you even a native English speaker?