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etymology - How did the use of "could of" and "should of" originate, and is it considered correct?





Is “of” instead of “have” correct?



It bothers me that so many people use could of, would of, should of instead of could've or could have, etc.


For instance, I have seen people write I could of been hurt or I should of seen that truck.


Does anyone know how this originated? Is this a mistake only American English speakers make, or is it common with British English speakers too?


Also, is that actually legal English?



Answer



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.


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