Linguistics (inspired by Powers Pet Peeves ;) )

[Drama Queen]

It's a pet peeve of mine.

Way way off topic, but I'm listening to a mind blowing linguistics course and I'm getting from it that dialects are as legitimate a form of language as the "standard" version. With regards to English, the standard version basically stems from a couple of books written by bishops in the 17thCentury that felt that English needed more rules, because it wasn't as glamorous as Latin or Greek (even though they were basing this off the idea that those languages had various conjugations that actually made sense, whereas the things they introduced such as "Billy and I" being correct as opposed to "Billy and me" don't make a lick of sense.

Nobody talks like the narrative of a book unless they are making a formal speech or simply being pretentious, aside from these silly rules which makes English a complete bitch for foreigners. (granted it's the same in other languages... the French or Spanish you learn in school will apparently make you sound completely clueless in France and Spain... and forget about trying to use "proper" Arabic! There is a "standard" version of each language but it is never used in actual dialogue.

And now that I see how much I've rambled I'm going to have to take this out of the wrestling thread and give it it's own topic. 

[Mike Powers]

I'm not expecting people to speak/write following every single rule out there. That's silly and unrealistic. That said, whenever I see "should of", "could of", or "would of"....which I've been seeing with alarming regularity over the last year or so....it leaps off of the screen and practically slaps me in the face. It simply makes no sense!

[Drama Queen]

I'm not expecting people to speak/write following every single rule out there. That's silly and unrealistic. That said, whenever I see "should of", "could of", or "would of"....which I've been seeing with alarming regularity over the last year or so....it leaps off of the screen and practically slaps me in the face. It simply makes no sense!

Haha, yeah I can see your point on that, it doesn't make a logical sense, but that's actually part of how language evolves. Vowels get dropped, hard consonants become soft (if writing came along later than it did, little and bottle would be spelled liddle or maybe even with a h instead and the d or t(which doesn't exist orally anyway) would be dropped completely.

But yeah, entire words take on new meanings. There should be no such thing as a fish burger of chicken burger of veggie burger because there are no German towns called Fishburg etc that invented said patties lol.

So yeah... should of could become standard some day! People will stop thinking of it as a contraction, same as people stop thinking of hamburgers being named for the town (where people think the actual HAM is, I have no idea!)

Sorry dude, this is my new favorite subject and I could go on all day haha.

Incidentally writing does slow down the evolution of language. Oral languages evolve at a much faster rate... an aboriginal language in northern Australia had been revisited by linguists in 1990 for the first time since 1930, and the amount of new words and even grammar structures in the space of 60 years was apparently quite impressive!

[Mike Powers]

Should've = should have

Should of = nonsense

Should've = pat on the back

Should of = you should burn at the stake for the witch that you are

[Captain Metro]

I can't wait for Knuckles' post in this thread ...

[Rob]

Should've = should have

Should of = nonsense

Should've = pat on the back

Should of = you should burn at the stake for the witch that you are

This literally makes your head explode?

[Justin]

The all too common misuse of there, their, they're

[Mike Powers]

This literally makes your head explode?

It's a real bitch to cleanup, lemme tell you.

[Drama Queen]

It's a real bitch to cleanup, lemme tell you.

Oh, THAT head! I thought you were saying it gives you orgasms 

[Jon]

I can't wait for Knuckles' post in this thread ...

Knuckles should of already posted in here.

[Mike Powers]

*rimshot*

[Adam Wrong]

It's when people say "I could care less."... You mean couldn't...

[Justin]

It's when people say "I could care less."... You mean couldn't...

[Fnord]

I get how Powers' feels. I am too pointed at and mocked as a grammar Nazi. I just like things to be what they're supposed to be. Is that too much to ask?

[Doug E Fresh]

GRAMMAR SLAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!