| Is this a regional thing? I see it happen a lot |
| It's a regional thing. I grew up in the South, and nobody says it down there. I didn't hear it until graduate school in the Midwest, where plenty of people said it - and we were in graduate school, so all of these people had college educations. Can't exactly pin down which regions use it, though. Midwesterners, for sure, but I've also heard people from NY and PA say it. |
| Regional, but also English grammar is weird. |
| I assumed it was related to lack of education. |
Op - maybe. Dh says it and he has an mba. But somewhere along the line something very grave occurred where no one stopped him and said what IS that? And it feels weird to constantly correct him as an adult |
| Do you hear this sort of talk when standing around the bubbler ? |
There is no English Academy charged with protecting the language. Proper English diction and grammar is whatever the majority agrees is proper, and it varies by region and class. |
| Googling this brings up many discussions and it seems this is a common dialectal variation that is not limited to American English. One of the results from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/n5b8ng/couldve_went_instead_of_couldve_gone/ |
+1 and family background |
Somewhat bothered by the fact that so many of the reddit responses state that this is part of their PhD or Masters thesis. |
Isn't that the issue = Which phrase is used by the well educated ? |
How is it weird? You were either taught proper English, or not. This should have been taught starting in the 1st grade. Even if you hear it at home or "in the streets" what you're learning in school trumps all of that. |
PP here and yes, exactly. English has many different dialects all with their own rules, and since there are many, many irregular conjugations in English, there will be many different conjugation differences among dialects. |
What is proper English? The English would argue it’s the King’s English which isn’t taught anywhere in the US. |
I just said what it was - it's what's taught to you starting in the 1st grade. Pay attention. |