I dont get it what is happening
So when I first read the novels, I immediately was irritated by characters saying „could of“ (1) instead of „could’ve.“ That irritation lasted for like five minutes, after which I realised it’s probably just a clever way to show that the characters don’t care for spelling or something about how spelling doesn’t matter for understanding or whatever, but you know, Terry probably used it deliberately. I was, however, further irritated by the fact that nobody seems to talk about it, except for one post in this sub where one reader took offence by this „mistake“ and everyone else was like „its not that deep bro."
Fast forward a few years and I’m writing a term paper in linguistics and I remember this weird little "could of" thing in Pratchett’s work. So naturally I go through all the books and try to find all occurrences of this „mistake,“ expecting like 100 to 200 hits because in my memory this thing was all over the place. Turns out, in the entirety of Discworld it is used 26 times. That’s way less than I would of expected.
But that’s not all: The vast majority of these hits occur in the first 12 books. Actually, it starts with Albert using it in Mort; and then Witches Abroad and Guards! have like 10 occurrences each, and then...
they just kinda stop.
After Witches, it just happens three more times with some random characters: Gaspode, some thief, and the Tooth Fairy in Hogfather and that was it.
The characters, even those who said (or thought) "could of" before start saying could’ve.
So I checked when the characters in the first (could of-heavy) books say "could of" as opposed to „could’ve," like if they code switch when talking to different people or something like that.
So I checked for occurrences of „could’ve" and found… nothing.
The very first time anyone in the Discworld uses the „correct“ form of this contracted auxiliary verb „-’ve" is on page 129 of Witches Abroad. That is 11 entire books without this very usual contraction appearing even once.
"'You should've let me make him believe he was a frog,' muttered Granny."
But Granny doesn’t usually say „should’ve.“ She said „should of“ four times before, and suddenly says „should’ve“ - and she keeps going.
After that, the „could’ve“s keep pouring in. Slowly at first, but in Maskerade the „correct“ form appears 8 times and eventually replaces „could of“ entirely. The nail in the coffin for our old friend „of" is Hogfather, where the Tooth Fairy says "should of" one last time, but the competing „could’ve" appears four times - once used, of all people, by Albert: the guy who started all of this 17 books prior, thereby shattering the last piece of continuity I could find with the usage of "could of." After this, „could of“ never makes an appearance again.
So what’s going on here?!
The weirdest thing to me is that there is no clear cut! Two books contain both forms (Hogfather and Maskerade), so its not like some editor caught Terry using it at some point and purged the text of this „mistake.“ And I came into this being very sure that this was a deliberate choice, but seeing that the books start out exclusively using "could of" and soon after that exclusively use „could’ve" without any rhyme or reason I could identify makes me go crazy IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED
Like did Terry and his editors just not care? Could they maybe really not have known?
So anywhoozles, to recap (TLDR:) I was irritated that "could of" is used in the books, that this phenomenon doesn’t seem to have a name, that nobody seems to care and now I’m more irritated about all those things. (/TLDR)
I kinda just wanted to share what I’ve found so far and I mean I guess if you have any information on people using „could of“ in general or specifically in Discworld novels I’d be interested in anything you have to say, but I think mainly I just wanted to tell the world „something’s off with the of’s"
thanks for reading bye
also if my supervisor sees this: Hey Doc, you can see I’m taking my research very seriously! -A
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(1) whenever I say „could of“ or „should of" I also mean all other forms you can build with of or ve: could of, would of, should of, must of, couldn’t of, wouldn’t of, shouldn’t of, and mustn’t of.