Ryan's prepared (not off the cuff) statement proves he can't speak correct English.

[pnwmom]

He made a basic grammar mistake that even W. wouldn't have been capable of.

Are we sure he's an American?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/paul-ryan-marathon-time_n_1848715.html?ncid=webmail2


"The race was more than 20 years ago, but my brother Tobin—who ran Boston last year—reminds me that he is the owner of the fastest marathon in the family and has never himself ran a sub-three," Ryan said in a prepared statement. "If I were to do any rounding, it would certainly be to four hours, not three. He gave me a good ribbing over this at dinner tonight."

[Angry Dragon]

1. He did not write it

[pnwmom]

2. Prove it.

He, at the very least, approved it. So maybe he can speak; he just can't read.

[Angry Dragon]

3. I watched them write it

[grantcart]

4. Great now that we have somebody with real access let's have fun.

Next time tell them not to go half way, just make up shit altogether. Tell them in the new Ryan Budget there will be a black hole where not only will there be no taxes on the rich that we will start to randomly send billionaires checks because they are the only ones capable of hiring and obviously if they had more money they could hire more people. If Tiger Woods simply had more money he would get two caddies instead of one.

[pnwmom]

6. I think they should advise Romney that he doesn't have to make any appearances anymore.

He can send out an Empty Chair to take his place. After all, the chair on Thursday said more than Romney ever has.

[ailsagirl]

5. ouch

[Quantess]

7. Meh. It is a common error.

What really gets me is "has went" instead of "has gone"
There was a commercial for some Seen On TV Weight Loss Gadget where every single person in the ad said "I have went from size 18 to a size 8" , and it grated on my nerves.

Could it be a regional thing?

[pnwmom]

8. I think "has ran" is exactly the same type of error as "has went."

And neither mistake is common among educated people in written speech.

[Igel]

9. It's definitely dialectal.

Preterites and past participles in English have been in a state of flux for 800 years or more.

I heard somebody say "has rode" on NPR. In standard modern English it's "has ridden." But drop back 800 years and it's clearly "has rided."

Had a student in a class at a fairly homogeneous college do a study on past participles. Standard cloze test: Fill in the blank. Every verb used several times, once preterite and twice past participle.

She was shocked. One verb had 5 or 6 possibilities for the participle. In more than one case the student produced two past participles in sentences just a few lines apart--was it a need for a certain cadence? Surrounding sound segments? Slight difference in meaning? And "sneaked" versus "snuck", it's alleged, aren't interchangeable because each has a different implication as to modality and success.

I still can't quite get "awake" into a participle: Awoke? Awaked? Awoken? Awakened? So I just say "I woke up." Except when I say "I waked up."

And don't get me started on whether the preterite is "dived" or "dove," "lighted" or "lit," "dreamed" or "dreamt" or even "leaped" versus "lept." To what extent to we fight innovations or preserve the effects of the Great Vowel Shift on vowels that used to differ only by length and not quality?

Some variation is by geographic dialect. Some is age. Some is class/educational background. The general rule is that preterites and past participles have been merging, with preterites pushing out past participles. So Ryan's "have ran" and my parents' "have went" is the wave of the future. I watch a lot of British tv and read a lot of 19th century literature: I find "have leaped, dreamed and lighted" to be nearly ungrammatical. (Then again, I also require that my son use the subjunctive, since it's in my native dialect, even if it's vaguely archaic these days.). But I also grew up saying "I dove" and not "I dived." The older form is clearly "dived" and "dove" is probably an American neologism (like "rode" for "rided" is an old British neologism). "Drive" was a strong verb with a preterite "drove" and seems to have dragged other verbs with it.