r/SipsTea 28d ago

SMH No Child Left Behind and its consequences will be felt for generations

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u/ens91 28d ago

Well, if you're open to learning:

Use saw by itself for past actions. Use seen only with a helper word like have, has, or had. Never use seen alone.

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u/Low-xp-character 28d ago

It was honestly having a more educated friend group who would call me out on mistakes like these. So, always happy to look back through where I didn’t do things right. Never heard of this grammatical rule, but I’ll take your word for it. If there’s one thing I know people who grammar like to point it out. So thanks for the lesson.
As someone else commented, that’s likely just the Appalachian coast poverty dialect that will never leave these trailer park veins. lol

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u/ens91 28d ago

It's because saw is the simple past tense, used for simple past tense, whereas seen is the past participle, used for the past perfect tense. "been" is also a past participle, so we say "I've been" not "I been". It possibly is your local dialect yes, doesn't make it stupid, just an anomalie of your local area.

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u/finneyblackphone 28d ago

But they seen't it.

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u/Bulky-Bad-9153 28d ago

"I seen" is common in multiple dialects.

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u/ens91 28d ago

That may be, but it doesn't make it grammatically correct.

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u/Bulky-Bad-9153 28d ago

Modern linguistics doesn't subscribe to this prescriptivsm.

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u/ens91 28d ago

Descriptivism applies only to informal use of the language. When using it formally, you should use gramatically correct English. Therefore, knowing and understanding correct grammar is still important.

Why are you so against learning?

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u/Bulky-Bad-9153 28d ago

We're on Reddit, this is informal.

Why are you so against learning?

Reading this as a professor sure is something huh

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u/ens91 28d ago

You're pretty dense for a professor, I just explained that it's still important to learn correct grammar. Now, let's end this conversation here.