complicated grammar structure, or just wrong?

[tsukikage85]

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

Comments

[trinker]

"have not having had" is a horrible mashup of grammar exercises, not a grammatically correct phrase. ;)q

[smirnoffmule]

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.

[trinker]

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?

[smirnoffmule]

I'm British. I don't think I've been mishearing; I'm pretty certain I've used this kind of construction before myself.

[conuly]

People would say "not having had dessert yet" instead, though I can see where you're going with that. Still, I think it's wrong just on the grounds that most people hearing it would think it's wrong and also it's really hard to understand.

[qalanjo]

If I had heard someone say that, I probably wouldn't have though anything of it. It looks more awkward written out though.

[qalanjo]

*thought

[zougla]

I agree, in casual speech I probably wouldn't balk at it. When it's written out is when it seems awkward.

[jess_faraday]

I've never in my life heard, said, read, or even in my wildest dreams imagined haven't having. Western U.S. native speaker.

I'd definitely say not having had as a first preference, and having not had coming in a close second.

[star_cabaret]

Like the others said, there's one too many instances of "have" there. If it's part of a perfect tense, then the verb following should be the third form/past participle, so "having had," "not having had," and "having not had" would all be fine since the latter of the two verbs is in agreement with the first. "have having" sounds completely incorrect because it's the present participle (-ing) instead of the past participle.