complicated grammar structure, or just wrong?

Feb 24, 2011 19:31

'kay guys, need a grammaticality judgement here:
*eyes you, haven't having had dessert yet*

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trinker February 25 2011, 02:15:05 UTC
"have not having had" is a horrible mashup of grammar exercises, not a grammatically correct phrase. ;)q

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smirnoffmule February 25 2011, 02:43:04 UTC
Do you think haven't having been to the bank, she had no money is incorrect? I'm wondering if this might be a regionalism, because it's certainly a construction I've heard before, albeit a bit clumsily used here.

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trinker February 25 2011, 02:58:28 UTC
O.O ?!

Where is that a regionalism? That's fascinatingly weird. I've never heard that before, and I've been traveling around a bunch of the U.S. in recent years. I've also never heard it from an ESL speaker, although I won't claim my encounters (although highly varied) are exhaustive.

Just checked google: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22haven't+having+been%22 and I find *two* separate uses, out of 7 hits. (The others are either repeats of the same sentence, or broken across two sentences.)

Are you mishearing something, or is this something that people can't bring themselves to write, even if they say it? Or are you hearing it as something they don't think they're saying?

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smirnoffmule February 25 2011, 03:02:45 UTC
I'm British. I don't think I've been mishearing; I'm pretty certain I've used this kind of construction before myself.

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trinker February 25 2011, 03:13:05 UTC
All I know is a fast google search doesn't show people using it, at least in the specific phrasing ("haven't having been") that you just gave. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22haven't+having+had%22 gives only ... three, I think. One from near Stow, Massachusetts.

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