How did the use of "could of" and "should of" originate, and is it considered correct? [duplicate]
Solution 1:
The Oxford English Dictionary describes the etymology as:
Variant of have arising through misapprehension of the verb (when occurring as a clitic) as showing of.
It is described as being nonstandard and the definition is given as:
= have verb, used in the infinitive as the auxiliary of the perfect tense (especially in conjunction with modal verbs). Frequently in representations of non-standard speech.
The earliest recorded use is dated 1814, and it appears in a letter written in 1853 by the British novelist Charlotte Brontë.
Solution 2:
I think people write could of
instead could've
because it sounds like could of
- it is a contraction of could have
that is spelled could've
but sounds the same as could of
. The way it would be written without the contraction is I could have been hurt
.
The phrase could of
seems completely incorrect to me, as I can't even understand what it would mean.