It's COULD HAVE, folks

Just a note here from Mr. Anal English Guy: Could have. COULD HAVE. The proper way to spell this is c-o-u-l-d(space)h-a-v-e. Not "could of."

I like the verb "to have." It's handy, well, to have around. So I argue that CNN should have (not should of) known better:


No, this is not about Fairfax, Virginia's "Snow Day Boy," whiny loser that he is. It's about the CNN transcriptionist who is allowing a verb to die. He or she is not the first. But he or she, working for a national news network, should have (not should of) known better.

Why is this important? Don't languages evolve through the way words are pronounced and used? Does Mr. Anal English Guy say, phonetically, "could of " and "should of," and any other combination thereof, like the abomination "may of?" To answer the questions in reverse. Yes, I do. But don't spell the phrases phonetically. I spell them correctly. Yes, languages evolve. They also devolve. This is important because we're killing a verb and showing our phonetic ignorance. We're not saying "could of." We're saying "could've," as in the contraction for "could have." Same for "may have," which is being improperly contractionalized into "may've." To write the sentence "He may not of called you," begs for confusion -- even if we understand it phonetically. English may be the dominant language of business, entertainment and the Internet, but it doesn't have to the be dominant ignorant language, does it? The verb "to have" has has been in our language for generations. Don't kick it out through laziness.