The alt.usage.english FAQ   

• "could of"

  (Usage Disputes)
  
  

  
     We get frequent complaints about the occurrence of "of" in
  unedited prose where the meaning is "have".  "Have" contracts to
  "'ve", so "could've", "might've", "must've", "should've",
  "would've", etc. (and their negatives, "couldn't've", etc.), should
  be so spelled.  People have testified that it's got beyond a
  spelling mistake:  they've heard "would of" spoken with a clear
  pause between the words.
  
     WDEU says:  "The OED Supplement dates the naive (or ignorant) use
  of _of_ back to 1837.  [...Y]ou had better avoid it in your own
  writing. [...]  Bernstein 1977 allows that a schoolchild cannot be
  blamed for _could of_ -- once."

  
  
  Source: [Mark Israel, 'Usage Disputes: "could of"', The alt.usage.english FAQ file,(line 1445), (29 Sept 1997)]
  
  
  
  

Navigation

This is a temporary page for the development of aue FAQ material and the testing of scripts.

Please do not bookmark this page.