Publication Date
4-1-1967
Abstract
Among people who speak the most careless English, certain kinds of mistakes unfailingly appear, whatever individual idiosyncrasies may accompany them. Almost always, errors of grammar are confusions between forms which have some relationship but should logically be kept distinct from each other. One of the commonest is the confusion between the simple past tense and the past participle of verbs. This can go either way; a person who makes the mistake in one direction is just as likely to do the opposite in another case. So anyone who says "I seen him," "He done it," "He come," or "He run," may be quite as capable of saying "have drank," "have rode," "have saw," "have swam," or "could of went."
Recommended Citation
Foley, L. (1967). Look What We Got. Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 7 (3). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol7/iss3/2
