Grammar annoyance: the past tense of "see" is "saw", correct ?

[steve2470]

I see the mountain (present tense).

I saw the mountain (past tense).

I have seen the mountain (I forget what tense this is).

Am I correct ? I have heard (never seen in writing) people say " I seen that movie" or something like that. My understanding is you say, " I have seen that movie". It's like the word "saw" is extinct unless you're referring to a tool.

Am I the only one who gets a tad annoyed when you hear this ?

[tblue37]

1. FYI, "have seen" is present perfect.

[steve2470]

2. thank you!! nt

[mainstreetonce]

28. Past perfect

It is past perfect.

[Iggo]

31. Past Perfect would be "had seen."

"Have seen" is present perfect because "have" is present tense.

"Had seens" is past perfect because "had" is past tense.

I think...

[tblue37]

40. No. "Had seen" is past perfect. nt

[trixie2]

37. You've lost me

[Ohiogal]

3. My old neighbor

from W. Va. used to say "I seen that". I am guessing it's not the Queen's English....

[zanana1]

47. That's OK. We don't have a Queen. nt

[SCantiGOP]

58. Shouldn't it be

I done seen that?

[dameatball]

4. Actually in my area of Appalachia the correct term is "I done seen it!".....:)

[jberryhill]

54. Yep. "Done seen"

[roody]

5. Yes. But it does not bother me

When people say "I seen". It is a dialect. But it indicates a low level of education.

[tblue37]

6. It is a dialect difference, but it is nonstandard, of course. Another increasingly common error

is the use of the infinitive rather than the past participle in statements like "He is bias" instead of "He is biased."

BTW, "seen" is the past participle. Verbals (participles, infinitives, gerunds) are nonfinite verb forms. They are made from verbs, but lacking a conjugated auxiliary verb, they cannot (at least not in standard English) serve as the predicate verb of a clause, which must be a finite (i.e., fully conjugated) verb.

Here is my article on verbals:

http://grammartips.homestead.com/verbals.html

[oasis]

49. Outstanding. Thanks

[Croney]

7. No, you're not the only one.

I tend to get more judgmental than annoyed.

I save annoyance for hearing "invite" used as a noun. Yes, I know it's accepted now but I hate it. What's wrong with invitation?

[nocoincidences]

8. I seen it is just bad grammar and definitely a dialect kind of error.

My peeve is using lead as the past tense of lead. The past tense of lead is led.

This happens constantly in writing online. I am assuming that spellcheckers don't find it and proofreaders evidently don't know the difference either.

It is: read read

But it is: lead led

Grrrrrrrrrrr.

[tblue37]

41. My article on that error is called "Get the Lead Out!". nt

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. I thought that was one of our little Chicagoisms.

As in, "I seen a guy rob the bank at the Jewels."

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. It may have stemmed from a contraction issue.

I have seen movie

has become

I've seen that movie

to

I seen that movie.

[2naSalit]

12. THis has crossed my mind

as well. I studied linguistics in college and I had a pretty good primary education in English and have been identified as a "natural code switcher" . I can adapt to any dialect I am hearing and/or interact with in a few seconds, even in a single statement. Sometime I switch dialects within a sentence for emphasis. Seems I have my own dialect of sorts.

My favorite annoying phrase, that I use on purpose to be annoying: On account of.. because!

A lot of the speech shifts that I find bothersome often come from bad grammar/language education and desire for uniqueness. The one that gets me most is, "That needs washed" - for reasons I can't explain along with the misuse of apostrophes.

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. As they say, language is a developing thing.

I have noticed even the big newspapers have used ..."reign" instead of "rein"....as in .."reign him in" more often.

[demigoddess]

18. I just think it is lack of spelling lessons. I remember in school

we had lessons on two, too, and to, there, their, they're etc. but I bet they do not teach these details anymore. I rarely hear that the kids in school have spelling lessons. My kids had very little. Almost none past the 3rd or 4th grade. If they didn't learn it by that time, they just don't learn it. My sister was taught to read by flash cards. For years she would see the first and last letters and make up the middle of the word. Finally a teacher taught her to sound things out.

[xxqqqzme]

27. I have seen 'then'

being used in place of 'than' more and more. It was nicer then others I have seen. Most annoying.

[demigoddess]

56. I keep seeing women when they are talking about just one woman!!

[2naSalit]

24. That's just because they either

rely on spell check too much and/or just never learned to spell. Etymology, even a little bit, goes a long way.

[tblue37]

42. "That needs washed" is common in northeastern Pennsylvania. Apparently it developed from German,

under the influence of the Pennsylvania Dutch.

My father's family are in northeastern PA, which is where I encountered that phrasing. They also pronounce "h" as "haitch." That one bothers me, but "That needs washed" never has.

[pansypoo53219]

38. i saw that new movie.

[backtoblue]

11. I will have seen this post by tomorrow.

[2naSalit]

13. And by then...

I will be glad that you have seen it.

[Aristus]

19. That sounds like Future Perfect.

A tense which should be eliminated because it was found not to be perfect.

[backtoblue]

20. Deja vu !

The matrix has been upon on us before and we will have known that future perfection is but a dream.

[mitch96]

15. I love posts like this

A dialect switcher??? Never heard of that before... neat!
My pet peeve is when people say.. Oh, that's so fun...... Isn't it so MUCH fun?? With out the modifier it just sounds dumb to me... And I sucked in English class at school. I think I took it in summer school for years...uggh
m

[tblue37]

43. Again, in standard English "so" isn't supposed to be used as a vague intensifier, but

it is commonly used thus in many US dialects.

[d_r]

53. I am a register switcher

As a child I was surrounded by a "non standard" dialect, but I quickly learned in college to switch to standard American dialect to pass for middle class. As a 50 year-old, I routinely speak in standard American dialect in most situations, particularly professional ones, but can shift registers easily to communicate with folks who speak my dialect, and will often fall into my dialect if I am overly tired, etc. It is a sign of comfort, really. I've noticed most people I come into contact with in professional situations do it. I actually believe it is an important skill to teach youth from under-represented and traditionally oppressed minorities.

[aka-chmeee]

16. If you are old enough, you remember when English had rules.

Recently I was checking proper usage of a pronoun on the internet (I couldn't find my 1959 edition of "The Plain English Handbook&quot and discovered that (even though they still teach english every year of school) that since English is "descriptive" not "prescriptive" things like that just don't matter anymore. It seems like a lot of BS to me.

[Fla Dem]

17. What annoys me are pundits and news broadcasters referring to Omarosa's recording as tapes.

There are no tapes and yet every news broadcast/pundit talks about her 200 tapes! Unless she made these recording using a "tape recorder". I am assuming she made them with her mobile phone record app. In which case there are no tapes.

And yes, I hear people screw up tenses. Doesn't really bother me. I accept where it comes from.

[hlthe2b]

22. Old usages... Just as they still talk about a new "album" dropping (whether a vinyl issue occurs or

merely CD/digital), taping has become a synonym for recording and hence "tape" for digital recording.

Grammatical errors are different. The "tape" and "record" issues merely reflect the colloquial use of terms that once were specific to old technology but now have become generic terms.... Much like "kleenex" referring to all facial tissues.

[hlthe2b]

21. It is one of those things that grates on my nerves, but I never correct anyone...

(unless they are a young kid)...It seems to be more common than I recall growing up...

[Doc_Technical]

23. What happened to the word pled,

past tense of plead?


The word pled is not listed in the DU spellcheck.

[2naSalit]

26. That one gets me too

along with the "tomb of the 'unknowns'" It's "the tomb of the unknown", officially the tomb of the unknown soldier. The only "s" is at the beginning of the word "soldier".

[mahatmakanejeeves]

57. I'm with you, but the AP says otherwise.

Michael Dolan Retweeted:

It's plead, pleaded, pleading. AP style advises against using the colloquial past tense form, pled.

Link to tweet

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

25. Yep. It sounds ignorant and it drives me nuts.

[chillfactor]

29. what gets me is people who cannot tell the difference..

between their, they're, and there

[question everything]

30. How about loosing something?

As in: no longer have it?

[MaryMagdaline]

32. Yes bothers me

I have actually heard people with college degrees say “him and me did x.”

The one that hurts my ears: different than instead of different from. Began to pop up in the 80’d and I think it is permanent.

Also bad ... people who use “whom” where it does not belong as in “I hate people whom use whom where it does not belong.” If who is the subject of the clause, should be who, not whom.

Anyway, as years go by I am losing the ability to spell so I can’t judge too harshly.

[tblue37]

44. Even worse, they usually say "me and him," which violates both grammar and etiquette. nt

[MaryMagdaline]

46. So true!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

33. I am annoyed by any and all lapses of grammar and usage.

I try to be forgiving of certain errors here, because I can get typing too fast, and then I don't bother to proof read most of my posts, and I hate it when something stupid slips through.

I am constantly driven crazy by people who obviously never learned the difference between the subject and the object form of personal pronouns, and so they say things like, "Me and him went to the movies" or "The cop gave my friend and I each a ticket for jaywalking."

Arrrgghhhhh!!!

I also am crazed by people not understanding the difference between less and fewer. Lie and lay. I am very proud that I made sure my sons knew the distinction between those two, and they are probably the only two people under the age of 50 who get those words right (use them correctly).

Part of the problem is that so few people bother to study a foreign language, and are proud to immediately forget what little they learned after the stop taking it. Foreign language teachers complain bitterly that they not only have to teach the grammar of the language, but English grammar also, as the students haven't a clue about almost any aspect of grammar.

In answer to the OP, "seen" is the past participle of "to see' and always takes a helper verb. English, unlike a lot of other languages, has a slew of helper verbs, and that's one of the things that makes our language so tricky, even for native speakers.

[zanana1]

48. I had a life lesson about grammar.

When I was the manager of a retail store, I walked by a clerk who was crying. I asked her what was wrong and she said "You use all those big words". I felt like two cents. No more judgmental sentence "correcting" for me!

[eppur_se_muova]

34. Someone's grammar needs fixed. nt

[Kali]

39. LOL

[malthaussen]

52. +1

[DFW]

35. Are you discussing English only, or are you including Republicanese?

In Republicanese, there are several forms of the simple past for the verb "see."

Where in English, the simple past of "I see" is "I saw," in Republicanese, it can be "I saw," but also "I seed," "I seen," or even "I sew." As so often in Republicanese, many forms are correct so long as they are not used twice in a row.

Don't forget, when writing in Republicanese, remember to use an apostrophe to form a plural, but never the same way twice in a row. Example of plurals in Republicanese: "we have two dog's and three cats, but the house next door has three dogs and two cat's." Since English doesn't use an apostrophe to form a plural, it is simple to detect when someone is writing in Republicanese.

[ailsagirl]

36. No, you are not the only one-- not by a long shot

There are so many examples of ungrammatical sentences that it would take me a month to list them here.

Suffice to say, I do hear you.

[whistler162]

45. Obviously

you need one of these. When I sawed it me knowed it was perfect for you.

https://www.amazon.com/Nerf-Zombie-Strike-Foam-Bat/dp/B0785P5KJX

[Sancho]

50. I'm enjoying the thread...but...

I started teaching in SC and GA over 40 years ago. It was common to switch back and forth with LEP (limited English proficient) students who used black vernacular or even those who spoke Gullah. I saw students who spoke English in theory, but were hardly understandable in practice.

I've been in Florida for 25 years, and I would guess about one third of my students were born outside of the US. An even larger proportion (40%?) speak something other than English at home. Most teachers in Florida today get some training in ESOL (English for speakers of other languages), but it's minimal.

From kindergarten to graduate students, it would take every moment of the day to standardize some current form of English in most of today's classrooms. Fortunately, most students actually want to learn English, and computer tools help more than hurt conventions. I have seen more and more blending of languages into acceptable "conventions", and it's hard to predict where it's all going to go. Tenses are often confused.

As such I don't get annoyed by grammar errors any more. I just accept and correct as a matter of course. OTOH (text abbreviations also invade writing today), I find innumeracy problematic. I don't believe that "I'm bad at math/hate math" should be any less acceptable than "I'm bad at speaking/hate writing". Correcting math convention errors really gets people riled up since there's even less rule generalization.

[samnsara]

51. I've never heard a real life person say that

[TexasBushwhacker]

55. The English teachers used to make the kids write an essay

where they could use no "to be" verbs. In other words, they had to write "I saw" not "I have seen". The kids griped about it but it was a good exercise. Using present and past tense rather than present and past perfect is a more powerful way of expressing a thought.

[Laffy Kat]

59. What is it with, "I had went there"?

I hear this all of the time from people I really didn't expect. I have to bite my tongue every time.