promises to disappear from the situations in which it is still used. I have heard was used in place of it, as in "before the Elks was come here."[1] Sometimes it is confused ignorantly with a distinct of, as in "she would of drove," and "I would of gave." More often it is shaded to a sort of particle, attached to the verb as an inflection, as in "he would 'a tole you," and "who could 'a took it?" But this is not all. Having degenerated to such forms, it is now employed as a sort of auxiliary to itself, in the subjunctive, as in "if you had of went," "if it had of been hard," and "if I had of had."[2] I have encountered some rather astonishing examples of this doubling of the auxiliary: one appears in "I wouldn't had 'a went." Here, however, the a may belong partly to had and partly to went; such forms as a-going are very common in American. But in the other cases, and in such forms as "I had 'a wanted," it clearly belongs to had. Sometimes for syntactical reasons, the degenerated form of have is put before had instead of after it, as in "I could of had her if I had of wanted to."[3] Meanwhile, to have, ceasing to be an auxiliary, becomes a general verb indicating compulsion. Here it promises to displace must. The American seldom says "I must go"; he almost invariably says "I have to go," or "I have got to go," in which last case, as we have seen, got is the auxiliary.
The most common inflections of the verb for mode and voice are shown in the following paradigm of to bite:
ACTIVE VOICE
Indicative Mode
Present I bite Past Perfect I had of bit
Present Perfect I have bit Future I will bite
Past I bitten Future Perfect (wanting)
- ↑ Remark of a policeman talking to another. What he actually said was "before the Elks was c'm 'ere." Come and here were one word, approximately cmear. The context showed that he meant to use the past perfect tense.
- ↑ These examples are from Lardner's story, A New Busher Breaks In, in You Know Me Al, pp. 122 et seq.
- ↑ You Know Me Al, op. cit., p. 124.
