rzed
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 3:06 am
Post subject: Re: Usage of "would have been" |
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don groves <dgroves@domain.net> wrote in
news:MPG.1bf2cff565061613989a4d@news.individual.net:
| Quote: | In article <2usog1F2g61onU1@uni-berlin.de>, Areff at
me@privacy.net poured forth...
Ross Howard wrote:
You're all off track. The Official Millennial Form is "Would
you of voted for HRC if she, not JFK2, would of been the
person that the Democrats would of nominated for president?"
That's certainly correct TCE.
Yeahbut, folks who speak thataway would'a sayed:
"Would y'all a voted fer HRC if'n her 'n not JFK2 would'a bin
the one them Democrats would'a had runnin' fer preseedent?"
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Not all. Growing up in Wisconsin, I often heard the "if I would
have" form used. Some of us may have been a little lax in
enunciating "ing" word endings, sometimes, but not always, and not
often enough to find our speech characterized that way.
We did not use "y'all" (though many of us did long for a collective
second person plural indicator, and some used "yous guys" or
something similar). Mostly, though, "you" was clipped to "ya" (or
"yuh") or something similar. Didja know that? Ya didn't?
We would have used "'ve: rather than "a" before "voted", and
"would've" rather than "would'a" in your example. I will grant that
"would've" might be *heard* as "would of".
We did not use "if'n", just "if".
"Fer" is possible, assuming the e represents a schwa, which
reasonably describes our pronunciation of "for" in an unaccented
position.
I don't know *any* region where "preseedent" would usefully
describe the pronunciation of "president", although it is possible
that one exists. It was not the case in Wisconsin, South Carolina,
or Floridia, and is not the case in Virginia (all places where I've
stayed for extended periods of time) and I believe it is not the
case in California, Arizona, New York state, or Ohio (all places
where I've spent a fair amount of time). I've never heard it on
television or radio, to the best of my knowledge.
I don't believe the second "would have" would have been used. It's
not contrary to fact, for one thing, and it takes too much time and
effort to say. Most likely an elided "had" would appear in that
position.
The "if her" could as easily have been "if she", although either
might have been spoken during a conversation.
So in Wisconsin, at any rate, the sentence might possibly have
been:
"Would ya've voted for HRC if she and not JFK2'd been
the one the Democrats would've had running for president?"
I do not find the "if I would've" construction offputting,
personally. There's a mental state that brings forth a conditional
construction, and in speech there is no reason for that state to
vanish within the span of a single sentence. It seems unremarkable
to me that "If I would have known you were coming, I would have
baked you a cake" should reduplicate the conditionality. I don't
know of any confusion the construction could render to its hearers.
It seems unambiguous and innocuous enough.
In formal, written text, of course, there are other considerations,
but in casual speech there are far worse verbal oddities, it seems
to me.
--
rzed
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 3:16 am
Post subject: Re: Usage of "would have been" |
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"Areff" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:2usmatF2fdcmeU2@uni-berlin.de...
| Quote: | CyberCypher wrote:
But I'm not into throwing things these days. I'm looking at the
bloody USA political map and see that the election will play well in
Peoria, and anything that's good enough for Peoria has never been
good enough for the rest of America.
But Kerry won Illinois by a fairly wide margin. (Though I'm sure Bush was
stronger in "Egypt", the region of Illinois that is to the south of where
Ray Wise is from. Is Peoria in "Egypt"?)
--
Steny '08!
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No, Peoria is not in Egypt. Egypt is "south of where Ray Wise is from," and
I was born in Peoria, although I grew up in another part of Central
Illinois.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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don groves
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 3:52 am
Post subject: Re: Usage of "would have been" |
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In article <Xns95969A51B8C14jreeder@63.223.5.95>, rzed at
jello@comics.com poured forth...
| Quote: | don groves <dgroves@domain.net> wrote in
news:MPG.1bf2cff565061613989a4d@news.individual.net:
In article <2usog1F2g61onU1@uni-berlin.de>, Areff at
me@privacy.net poured forth...
Ross Howard wrote:
You're all off track. The Official Millennial Form is "Would
you of voted for HRC if she, not JFK2, would of been the
person that the Democrats would of nominated for president?"
That's certainly correct TCE.
Yeahbut, folks who speak thataway would'a sayed:
"Would y'all a voted fer HRC if'n her 'n not JFK2 would'a bin
the one them Democrats would'a had runnin' fer preseedent?"
Not all. Growing up in Wisconsin, I often heard the "if I would
have" form used. Some of us may have been a little lax in
enunciating "ing" word endings, sometimes, but not always, and not
often enough to find our speech characterized that way.
|
But my response was to what Ross Howard wrote: "... would of...",
not "... would have...".
--
dg (domain=ccwebster)
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