Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda
We Americans are word mushers. In our drive to expedite everything, we shorten words, eliminate letters, substitute words, and create new ones.
Examples abound, but none so prolific as the ways we mess with could have, should have, and would have.
Linguists refer to could, should, and would as “modal verbs.” We use modal verbs to indicate that things are or were possible with certain circumstances in place. They indicate whether something is probable or even able to happen. Their use tells us that the planets are in alignment for something to occur—or not.
When we talk in the conditional past tense (which is more often than you think, despite the clumsy moniker), we add the verb “have” behind our modals.
Could have means that something WAS possible—but it didn’t happen.
If you had waited five minutes, I could have carried those barbells upstairs for you, Grandma.
Should have means an obligation was missed.
I should have been there for you—damn this being sultan of a small country!
Would have means that something MIGHT have been done, had the circumstances been better.
Sheila would have won the gold medal, but a broken fingernail ended that dream.
Contractions of the Verbal Kind
We word mushers are in love with saving time; hence, we create contractions. Why use two words when one will do?
Contractions are built by joining two or more words together to create a new word by eliminating certain letters and replacing the missing letters with an apostrophe. Long definition for a shortened word.
Thus, we get could’ve, should’ve, and would’ve. You’d think this would satisfy us. Nope.
To Have and Have Not Have
In our efforts to economize, we often substitute wrong words for the correct ones. And sometimes we hear the wrong words and just start using those instead. When people say “could’ve, should’ve, and would’ve,” some people hear could of, should of, and would of. Saying “could of” instead of “could have” happens all the time. And then people write could of/should of/would of.
All too often when proofreading, I find this mistake in materials written by some of the smartest people around. It just goes to show that our ears inform our writing.
Delectable Dialect
Even this “of” substitution does not sate our word-mushing appetite. Why use two letters of an incorrect word when a single letter or sound will do? So, we swap out the erroneous “of” for the even more erroneous “a,” smash them together, and form coulda, shoulda, and woulda.
One of the most famous uses of coulda is from the classic film, On the Waterfront. A young Marlon Brando, in the role of Terry Malloy, says to his mobster older brother Charlie, played by Rod Steiger, “I coulda been a contender!” (When you say it, remember to add a lot of angst and drop the final R.) (It also helps to be in the back seat of a car.)
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers wrote and recorded, “I Should Have Known It.” Regardless of the correct grammar in the title, they sing, “I shoulda known it” every time. So do we all when we sing along.
And then there’s Chris Farley’s character Tommy Boy’s snappy comeback line to David Spade in the movie Tommy Boy: "If I wanted a kiss, I woulda called your mother." (Respond by swinging a baseball bat.)
I Coulda Danced All Night, but I’ll Close Instead
I leave you with two things. One is a handy chart of the combinations discussed above.
The second is an example that appeared in a piece of writing I recently read, smashing words together in a lovely American mélange: “I shouldnahadta tell ya.”
Ah, Americanese!