Re: "have him have to"
- From: "Raymond S. Wise" <mplsray@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 11 Jun 2006 11:50:15 -0700
ypark wrote:
have [noun phrase] have to
Is this grammatical? It sounds very odd but a lot of people are using
it.
As another poster suggested, you would help us by giving an example.
I also see "have ate" "have went" etc a lot lately mostly from
californian youngsters. When does this become grammatical and who
decides?
Y. Park
That's "Californian," with a capital "C."
It is usage that decides such matters. Basically, if enough educated
speakers use a given usage it will become recognized as grammatical
according to the rules of informal Standard English, and if enough of
them use it in articles and books, or in such formal occasions as court
cases, it will become recognized according to the rules of formal
Standard English. There's no compelling reason for capitalizing
"Californian": That's just the way we do it in standard English. (That
concerns a spelling rule, not a grammar rule, but the principle is the
same.)
The examples of "have ate" and "have went" are *already* grammatical in
the speech of the people who use them. They're just not standard
yet--and it may very well be an uphill battle for them to become
standard. But consider the following: In his book *Nineteenth-Century
English,* in the chapter "Grammar," Richard W. Bailey discusses the
controversy which once surrounded the then-new usage represented in the
sentence "Are there any houses being built in your village?" The
purists of the 19th century would have scorned such a sentence in favor
of "Are there any houses building in your village?" which would sound
odd if used today.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
.
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- From: ypark
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