I just read a short story set in Great Britain, with this, “Torri and Jessi had went out for dinner”…
There were no other obvious typos in the story. I would have said “had gone out,” but perhaps I’m just not clear about the differences about the same language that divides us.
What say you?
Who’s the writer? It could be a dialect thing, but then there’d be other markers of that. It’s certainly not standard English.
It’s a colloquialism. There are parts of the U.S. where people use that same construction. Misuse (or nonstandard use, if you prefer) of past and perfect participles of irregular verbs is not uncommon.
I don’t know of any US English teachers who wouldn’t cringe when seen that usage. If there are, let us know! My question is whether it is acceptable usage in the UK, Australia, Canada, or New Zealand.
I answered that. No, it’s not.
I’ve looked for a cite (as I expect you did before asking the question on here), because I wouldn’t expect you to necessarily believe the word of a native English speaker from England who’s a qualified English teacher who’s also taught EFL for over a decade (not being snarky - I could be lying, for all you know), but all the sources that included ‘had went’ are US-based or multi-national, and the UK sites I know don’t cite that usage specifically in their past perfect teaching. It’s simply taken as read, because ‘went’ is clearly past simple, so you can infer how to use ‘went’ from other uses of past simple.
Give it time, and others will surely chime in to say that it’s not standard English in the UK, Australia or NZ (don’t know about Canada, but I’d guess that it’s not standard there either).
I fully expect you’re right, but I know better than to jump to a conclusion.
Just to add a bit–what often (at least here, in NE Texas) happens is that even native speakers will misuse the simple past tense of an irregular verb by adding a helper (or auxiliary.)
Thus, what I often hear is something like “I wish I wouldn’t have ate that.” Of course, “ate” is the simple past tense form of the irregular verb “to eat” and does not take helpers. “Eaten” is the past participle, and does take helpers (I have eaten; she has eaten; we will have eaten) when we want to be grammatically correct.
There’s no real justification to the error, other than an incomplete understanding of those pesky irregular verbs. Hell, to be perfectly honest, I teach the stuff and I often have to give myself refresher lessons before class.
Ugh, this is my personal bugaboo. Not the “ate” but the “I wish I wouldn’t have.” I wish I HADN’T.
Heh, nice catch. That’s so inherently natural to my ear that I didn’t even think about it.
I do understand where you’re coming from. Sometimes the logical conclusion is wrong, or the cultural grammar is different, so it is worth asking. However, I am right here - and I expect someone with more google-fu than me will provide a cite that you trust more than us lot.
Hopefully you won’t get as much piss-taking as I did when I once asked for a clarification of North American terminology. Man, that was mean.
I don’t know of any British English teachers who wouldn’t also cringe (and my spouse is one of them). It’s certainly not standard in the UK.
It would not be considered acceptable usage in Australia. It may occur though.
Gary T, do you have any evidence that this misuse is relegated to only some parts of the USA? In doing a quick google on it, I notice that it doesn’t seem very limited to one particular area.
It’s not acceptable in Canada, either. It’s as hard on the eyes as it is on the ears.
Essentially it’s substandard usage – “went” is past tense of “to go”; “gone” is past participle. However, it seems to be a fairly widespread if ‘improper’ colloquialism, along the lines of “should of” for “should have” – deplored by usage experts but common in everyday speech in some areas.
Another native British English speaking, qualified and practising teacher of English here. It’s not correct usage, though that doesn’t mean people don’t use it. I would correct it if I saw it in a student’s work or if they said it near me. I’m trying to think, but I wouldn’t say it was a regionalism even. It’s just wrong.
When you say “set in Great Britain”, which country is it set in? What was the nationality of the person who wrote it?
No, I based my comment on my experience. Growing up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., I never heard that. In Kansas City, I hear it occasionally, but most notably from a person who grew up in a smaller city in north central Missouri.
I had a book that did relate studies of certain idioms, complete with maps showing where in the U.S. you’re likely to hear each one. I was flabbergasted when I first heard my mother-in-law, an elementary school teacher, say “might could.” I had never heard that growing up, either. But it was in the aforementioned book, common where she lived but not where I had lived.
I remember reading a letter to Dear Abby from a young teacher in Texas, where the teachers in the high school she was assigned to routinely said “I seen…” Now, I never heard my friend (above) say “I seen” - “I had saw,” yes, but not “I seen.”
I’m just putting 2+2 together from what I’ve observed, but I think it’s fair to say that various nonstandard speech usages are common in some areas and uncommon (to the point of unheard of) in others.
Thanks all. It’s pretty clear that it’s universally considered substandard.