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Date:    Tue, 8 Apr 2008 16:14:32 -0400
From:    Scott <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: ATEG Digest - 6 Apr 2008 to 7 Apr 2008 (#2008-84)

I must have been lucky teaching.  I've taught all-Caucasian classes in small
towns in Florida; heavily African-American center-city classes in
Jacksonville, FL; overwhelming Hispanic classes in Los Angeles, I have not
encountered 'had went' ('done went', yes--but never forms with 'had' + a
past tense that was not identical to a past participle.  The 'done went'
was from a single student, although 'done' as an auxiliary verb was not
uncommon in speech; e.g, 'done gone.'  Nevertheless, no one in my classes
(high school or junior high) ever wrote using 'done' as an auxiliary or
using 'had' + a past tense.

The only explanation that I can see for the mistakes that you report is
a bad hangover from the 60's when many universities began to teach the
viewpoint that all levels of English usage are of equal value: shades
of Joos!

I have also read about--but never experienced--the snide remarks that "so
'n' so is acting White when the person criticized is using correct English.

Scott

(I just got through explaining to a class for the fourth time that "had
went" won't go over well in formal writing), but in the normal course of
things, grammars document the judgments, or give weight to one group's
judgments over those of other groups, rather than institute the judgments in
the first place (I'm hedging a bit because of Lowth and his ilk).=20

Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University

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