I haven't ate my lunch yet.

 

My husband and I were looking for an exit from the airport so we could catch a taxi, Lyft, or Uber. We stopped to rest a minute. Two airline attendants with their arms full of luggage, cups of soda, and brown paper bags, stood nearby. A custodian approached them, mumbled something to one of the attendants, and reached for her paper bag.

 The flight attendant turned around and held tightly to the bag. “No! I haven’t ate my lunch yet.”

 When did the attendant decide I haven’t ate was the preferred way to communicate? She spoke with such spontaneity that we knew “haven’t ate” was her customary way of speaking.

 Is the English language decaying?As we simplify our verbs in absurd ways that make little sense when we stop to think, are we causing our language to become more fragmented? Is English decadent? Is English decaying, i. e., falling apart? We no longer follow rules of grammar when we communicate.

 Another description of what is happening to our language is change. No one can deny our language is changing. Sometimes transformation is slow, sometimes it is fast, but it always takes time.

 Here’s the question. Are we transforming our language in a positive or negative way? Is it falling apart or are we merely rearranging it? Do we speak according to rules, or do the rules explain our speech? With the passing of time, language becomes simpler. It seems ironic that as mankind becomes more capable of inventing complicated scientific systems, we find ourselves losing the nuances of our way of speaking and writing.

 Whatever the situation is, we would be wise not to throw ourselves into the current of change so fast that we sound uneducated.

Y'all

 

If you are writing formally, you probably don’t want to use the contraction y’all, but if you are talking or writing informally, you will need the word to communicate the plural sense of the word you, especially if you live in the South and possibly if you live anywhere in the United States. Dictionaries now describe y’all as an informal pronoun in Southern dialect.

Long ago we stopped using the ancient singular forms, thee and thou, of the second person, which means the one we are talking to. The places where we might see these ancient pronouns are in Shakespearean plays and the King James Bible. Some of us pray with these old words, as if we assume that God hears thee and thou better than you. Since the King James Bible verses we know and love contain these words, we may consider them more respectful. Also, we sing hymns using these words, as in thou art.

Were you told in school that you is the plural of the second person pronoun? Did you believe your teacher? We know that you cannot effectively communicate the plural. Depending on where we live, we add something to it. Throughout the South we say y’all, a contraction of you and all. Throughout the life of the United States, the people of the North have laughed at us for saying y’all, but as time passes, they are saying y’all more often because they don’t have a word that sounds quite so natural or conveys the meaning y’all does.

They insist they say you guys, but doing so is more effort. Sometimes folks say you all, but that’s trouble too.

Since I’m from Mississippi, I speak with a drawl. Y’all epitomizes Southern drawl. When we say it, we need to be careful not to draw it out too much. We should speak the word confidently, not with an apology. When we write it, we must never write ya’ll, which is a misspelling of y’all.

Northern people say you guys or youse guys, and British speakers say you lot. Some Australians say youse, which is a substandard word that irritates Australians of culture. You-uns is an Appalachian word.

Relax. Say y’all and don’t feel self-conscious.

I Seen

Let’s discuss using seen without an auxiliary (helping) verb. This error can give most people who hear it a headache.

When I was in second grade, my teacher said See and Saw were two children on a seesaw. They could play independently, but their little brother named Seen could not go to the park and ride the seesaw without help. Doesn’t that story sound childish? It taught me a lesson though that I never forgot.

Your friend said, “I seen.” I’d like to help by listing the possible reasons he said it. Check the ones that apply.

_____He didn’t say “I seen.” You thought you heard him. You were sure he said it. Evidently he said “I’ve seen” so fast the “ ’ve” was inaudible. “I’ve seen” is a contraction meaning “I have seen.”

_____English is his second language. Have you studied Spanish or French? It’s a challenge to use the right verb forms. Your Spanish or French friend may be having the same problem with English.

_____English is your friend’s native language, but he has an inadequate education. It’s never too late though for a person to learn not to say, “I seen.”

_____Your friend is from a part of the country where people speak a dialect that includes “I seen.” Again, it’s never too late to learn standard English.

_____The person saying it may have thought it was cute when he was younger, but now he’s working in the professional world, where it has ceased to be cute.

_____He may have developed a habit of using it to impress a group of speakers who think it’s an acceptable way to talk.

_____His parents may have said “I seen.” He needs to honor them but not by speaking substandard language.

_____For one of the above reasons, your friend has developed the habit. When he needs to communicate, he slips up and says it a time when he’s in a hurry to make a point or state he witnessed something important.

*

Are you tempted to correct your friends and coworkers when they say “I seen” or another equally glaring error? Don’t.

Should Have Went

  All my life I've loved the English language. I listen to people talk, and sometimes the way they say things whets my curiosity. Occasionally it's possible to find a reason or at least formulate a hypothesis about  expressions speakers insist on using.

Went

Went is a strong, unsociable word. It has no friends because it doesn’t need any. When you try to get helpers such as has, had, and have to come too close for a visit, went will do all in his power to make you sound uneducated. Went is mean that way.

For example, if you say, “We should have went,” the people listening to you may pretend not to notice, but many listeners will hear what you say and think you are somehow deficient.

Don’t say any of the following. Don’t use them in any social groups. Don’t allow the sound of them to pass through your brainwaves.

I have went.

I had went.

You have went.

You had went.

He has went.

She has went.

It has went.

We could have went.

Remember not to use an auxiliary (helping) verb with went, even if the people listening to you say this. If went could be an athlete, it could not play football. Instead, it would be a cross-country runner.

Went is the past tense of go. Past tense verbs do not, do not like to, refuse, cannot take helpers.

The form of go that requires helping verbs is gone.

I had gone.

You have gone.

You had gone.

He has gone.

She has gone.

It has gone.

We could have gone.

Why are we talking about went to this extent? Using went correctly is important.

Back in 1853, Alexander Crombie stated in The Etymology and Syntax of the English Language that “I had went” was “an egregious solecism.” A solecism is an ungrammatical combination of words or a blunder, or it could mean poor manners. Egregious means especially bad or flagrant. Many rules of the nineteenth century are merely memories, but in the early twenty-first century, “I had went” is still considered unacceptable usage.

Practice! Develop the habit of saying gone instead of went with auxiliary (helping) verbs. Drill. Make up sentences using gone instead of went with have, has, or had. Say them until your brain believes you are right.

Some more thoughts about went. If it’s so terrible to say “have went,” why do we say it? The obvious reason is that we hear other people. Now, let’s move to a conjecture that might explain this “egregious solecism.” This information is not to excuse the expression; it’s my theory about how it came about.

We have many ways in our language to say “go.” In the Anglo Saxon era (fifth to twelfth centuries), two popular words meaning to travel from one place to another were go and wend. The past participle form (the one that requires a helper) of go, was similar to our word gone. They had a word for the past tense of go (the one that stood alone). So far, I have found two spellings of it—iolde and eolde. At some time around 1400, this word disappeared. Since language is a gradual practice, this disappearance didn’t happen overnight, but we don’t have the word now.

We do, however, still have the word wend with its past tense and past participle, wended. It implies traveling with a twisting motion. Wend is not a popular word, but its cousins, wind and vent, are common. Wend’s roots extend to Latin origins.

Around 1400 when eolde disappeared, Middle English speakers replaced it with went, the ancient past form of  a word for go. Is it any wonder that “have went” sounds normal to our ears? It’s somewhere embedded in our brains. Went must have been similar to a past participle in days gone by.

But today, we are supposed to say “have gone.” Don’t forget to practice.