Subject: I don't do that, and I'm an American.
Author:
Posted on: 2009-05-20 20:06:00 UTC
That said, my speech habits are slightly odd and tend to pick up the style of whatever I've been reading recently, so I can't really say that I'm representative of American speech habits. *shrugs* If it helps, I live in Pennsylvania.
Many moons ago, while co-writing with July, Trojie and I noticed a peculiarity of her grammar,which we merrily corrected throughout. But betaing for KG recently, an identical non-standard construction cropped up all over the place. So we're starting to wonder if it's a common and perfectly acceptable manner of speaking in the States. An example:
"When I was going to the bus stop, I saw a man." - standard grammatical construction; simple past tense.
"When I had been going to the bus stop, I saw a man." - variant spotted in July and KG's writing; pluperfect followed by simple past, which I'm not at all convinced is standard (though feel free to correct me). Looks odd to me, because that "had been going" suggests "ceased going prior to the seeing".
So, does anyone else use the second grammatical construction? And since it's always interesting to see the geographical spread of these things, if you use it (or not), where are you?
That said, my speech habits are slightly odd and tend to pick up the style of whatever I've been reading recently, so I can't really say that I'm representative of American speech habits. *shrugs* If it helps, I live in Pennsylvania.
(and it looks like that number keeps going up...)
It really wasn't my intention to offend anyone. I mean that. Please don't hate me. I just intended to answer the question as best I could, and by the look of things I messed up and wound up offending a lot of people.
I really am sorry.
Since I know KG is in the vague state/geographic area as my dad grew up in, and I could have picked it up from my dad.
You could well have done; I know I picked up some weird grammar off my dad. Do any of your local friends use similar constructions? And, if you don't mind me asking, what geographical area is that?
...haven't heard it here in Ye Wilde Wilde West. Have heard, however, "I had been going to the bus stop when I saw a man."
...I'd be more inclined to say "on my way to the bus stop, I saw a man" than either of those...
I'm more likely to say "on my way to" as well, and I grew up in Australia. My Mum's family is from Wigan though, if that helps. I picked up an accent from them when I was younger, I know that.
The second version reads like something someone who is trying to sound culture and educated and Veddy Propah would say (the voice in my head had an affected RP accent). Everyone I know would say "When I was going..." or "On my way to the bus stop...".
I think I've heard that before with a contraction; "When I'd been going etc. etc.".
It certainly doesn't seem grammatically correct and I doubt I've ever used it myself, but I do think I've heard similar things before. At the risk of sounding classist, I think it's more of a lower-income-bracket form of speaking (though I am by no means rich), more prominent in poorer areas of the country or poorer parts of cities.
I would like to point out that we're all taught the English language, and it's personal choice. My lower middle-class grammar is just fine, thanks, and I know plenty of people wealthier than I who speak as if they've never been to an English class.
Aw man, now I've reverted to Commiespeak.
Seriously? I think I know what you're trying to say, but 1) I strongly disagree, you're confusing demographics here, and 2) as July said, you're walking pretty close to the edge when you start talking about Boarders' classes.
The bugger of it is that there actually are well-documented links between class and grammatical deviations from standard. Never bothered me, but then, I'm English. We're practically born with an understanding and acceptance of class here.
Random informtative fact of the day: One of the biggest effects on whether one's grammar is non-standard is actually only indirectly related to money - it's level of education. Of course, this gets blurred to some extent these days thanks to access to global media, and it's certainly going to be blurred amongst people you meet round here thanks to online influences on us all. But there was a section on my sociolinguistics exam last year which involved some data collected a few decades ago. Said data demonstrated no or very few non-standard grammatical forms in people (who knew they were being recorded to have their idiolect analysed) who were university educated, with a sliding scale down to consistent deviations in over half the grammatical constructions being analysed from people who never made it past the eleven-plus. And, if memory serves, it also demonstrated that amongst the working classes or the less educated, women deviate less than men, but amongst the highly educated or the upper classes, men deviate less than women.
I think the point of that ramble was "class is a loaded word so sociolinguists tend to avoid it".
Don't take this too personally- unlike me- but tact is highly suggested when the people shown as examples are named.
My sincerest apologies. I had no intent of insulting anyone.