"Should of"

[dupontmorand]

So I'm reading A Clash of Kings and came across some grammatically terrible sentences:

"Might be I should of left you where I found you, boy."

"If he'd of yielded, they would have left us be."

One is Yoren speaking, the other Hot Pie.

So I'm wondering is that just that, poor grammar & even poorer proof reading, or could it be a way to characterize the speech of small folks?

[Arya kiddin']

It's a Westerosi attempt at cockney. :P

Yes I do believe it's the less refined speech of the smalfolk - like My Lady - m'lady kind of a thing.

[Jamie Lannister]

The latter. Hot Pie probably doesn't know any better, and Yoren, if he does, probably doesn't care.

[Hutch]

Small folks for sure. If this is your first read through, you'll notice more of that.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

It's just trying to show the rough speech of the uneducated smallfolk.

[dupontmorand]

Small folks for sure. If this is your first read through, you'll notice more of that.

I read the last 3 books first and then AGOT, and that's the 1st time it struck me.

[Dryhtscipe]

Crappy editing. There's quite a lot of it in the novels.

I don't buy the notion that it's how the small folk talk, since "should of" is in fact only a written error, not a spoken one - since "should of" and "could of" sound identical to "should've" and "could've". Which is, you know, how the error occurs in the first place - people only hear it, never see it, so they think it's one way when it's in fact the other (or alternately people make the phonetic error regardless of knowing the right way - quite brilliant writers can succumb to phonetic confusion too, regardless of their brilliance).

[Glenn of House Patrick]

Such is the speech of small folk. Hot Pie and Yoren never had Maesters and septas growing up.

[dupontmorand]

Such is the speech of small folk. Hot Pie and Yoren never had Maesters and septas growing up.

Well, I still think it's weird to introduce a contemporary spelling mistake into the speech of 'medieval' characters.

[Flig]

It's dialogue. It's a written representation of how the speaker is...speaking. You can't expect people to use proper grammar during everyday conversation, that's just not how people talk, especially when you're people like Yoren and Hot Pie who aren't a part of the educated class. Hell, Twain did it in his dialogue; you have Huck Finn saying things like "that ain’t no matter" and "it warn’t no time to be sentimentering."

Well, I still think it's weird to introduce a contemporary spelling mistake into the speech of 'medieval' characters.

They're already speaking modern English, more or less, it would only make sense for the small folk to be making the same mistakes that contemporary speakers would. If you weren't taught otherwise "should have" and even more so "should've" sounds an awful lot like "should of" when spoken.

[dupontmorand]

I don't buy the notion that it's how the small folk talk, since "should of" is in fact only a written error, not a spoken one - since "should of" and "could of" sound identical to "should've" and "could've". Which is, you know, how the error occurs in the first place - people only hear it, never see it, so they think it's one way when it's in fact the other (or alternately people make the phonetic error regardless of knowing the right way - quite brilliant writers can succumb to phonetic confusion too, regardless of their brilliance).

Yes, that was my point.

[Flig]

Crappy editing. There's quite a lot of it in the novels.

I don't buy the notion that it's how the small folk talk, since "should of" is in fact only a written error, not a spoken one - since "should of" and "could of" sound identical to "should've" and "could've". Which is, you know, how the error occurs in the first place - people only hear it, never see it, so they think it's one way when it's in fact the other (or alternately people make the phonetic error regardless of knowing the right way - quite brilliant writers can succumb to phonetic confusion too, regardless of their brilliance).

OP's second quote points out that the people talking are in fact using the word of instead of have in these instances, though. It's not Martin confusing "should've" and "should of," it's the characters believing that of is the correct word to be used and speaking that word, unless you think Martin(and his editor) confused "If he'd of yielded" with "if he'd have yielded," which would be a tad silly.

[Gort]

Crappy editing. There's quite a lot of it in the novels.

I don't buy the notion that it's how the small folk talk, since "should of" is in fact only a written error, not a spoken one - since "should of" and "could of" sound identical to "should've" and "could've".

Actually, I've heard "should of" and "could of" in speech. Once, I even asked the speaker to repeat it to make sure. It happens, and I'm 100% sure it's a characterisation trait in the books.

[kiasyd]

Yes, it's small folk style - the same way that wildlings and essosi have other distinctive styles.

[Mad Monkey]

It's dialogue. It's a written representation of how the speaker is...speaking. You can't expect people to use proper grammar during everyday conversation, that's just not how people talk, especially when you're people like Yoren and Hot Pie who aren't a part of the educated class. Hell, Twain did it in his dialogue; you have Huck Finn saying things like "that ain’t no matter" and "it warn’t no time to be sentimentering."

They're already speaking modern English, more or less, it would only make sense for the small folk to be making the same mistakes that contemporary speakers would. If you weren't taught otherwise "should have" and even more so "should've" sounds an awful lot like "should of" when spoken.

Yeah, these books are definitely not anything like Middle English. If they were, they probably wouldn't be so popular actually!

[BearIslander]

Westerosi just didn't have black rappers to learn proper English from.

[Ser Greg of House House]

It's obviously on purpose. I'm amazed that people think Martin would actually do that unwillingly.

In The Sworn Sword, Ser Bennis says 'He should of' several times. But you'll never read that coming out of Egg's mouth.

[Julian Rayne]

I've heard people saying "should of" and "could of" out loud in real life. In is in fact a spoken error.