Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Common eye dialect spelling (representing a mispronunciation) or misspelling, of should have or should've.

Etymologies

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Examples

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Comments

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  • It's "SHOULD'VE," for god's sake...

    February 23, 2007

  • Or should have if you're writing in a formal or business context. My boss uses this all the time, it is agonizing. He's British, so in his accent it might sound more like it, but still.

    October 29, 2007

  • This is one of those where the misspelling more accurately reflects common (I would say accepted) pronunciation than the correct spelling. That doesn't mean it should be misspelled; it just can't be counted as a mispronunciation.

    February 27, 2009

  • I would have though the common pronunciation is indistinguishable between 'of' and 'have': əv is the normal unstressed form of both words. 'Have' has an alternative, less common unstressed form həv, particularly in England, but this sounds very unnatural to me after another modal like this.

    The test is in those situations where modals assume their full forms, that is finally with the rest of the verb phrase omitted: 'They said I won't make it, but I will'; 'You think I can't win, but I can', etc. Problem is, 'shouldəv' is usually repeated as a whole: 'You shouldn't have done that, I should've.' So this wouldn't usually tease out whether the word was an underlying 'of' or 'have'. That said, I have sometimes heard people use a full-form 'of' here.

    February 27, 2009

  • "Should of gotten" is over 52 years old now. http://goo.gl/ANO1D

    It's time to accept it as a 'real word'.

    March 11, 2013

  • Qualifies it as a coprolite, but that's about all.

    March 12, 2013

  • I will accept it as a real word/construction when in non-formal writing its usage vs. the standard usage exceeds an arbitrary ratio...say 24:1. Which I give even odds of happening by 2050.

    March 12, 2013

  • wood halved (would have) - an unnecessary bifurcation?

    legendary sites (sights) are legend!

    March 12, 2013

  • Googlefight says that the ratio of 'should of gotten' to 'shoould have gotten' is around 1:1

    http://googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=should+of+gotten&word2=should+have+gotten

    In fact, 'should of' is 'winning'.

    March 12, 2013