Timeline for "I had been done that" Is this correct?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
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| Oct 26, 2016 at 11:47 | comment | added | trent | @StevenLittman If you had put that comment into your answer, preferably with a reference or justification for the assertion that "had been done that" is analogous to "did that a long time ago", I could have upvoted it. Unfortunately you saw fit to inject a long diatribe about whether AAVE is a "legitimate" dialect and give the questioner advice about how to manage his classroom, which is completely misplaced and off-topic on English.SE | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 23:39 | comment | added | Steven Littman | For one thing, "had" (been or done) is usually used only in reference to another past action that it precedes: When I went to the seance, I had the feeling that I had been there before. For another, if the time referent is "a long time ago," which is what the AAVE wording means, we generally use simple past in Standard English: I did that homework a long time ago. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 22:23 | comment | added | John Around Him | I want my students to be hyper aware of the distinction between their community dialect and Standard English. I am not sure how to clarify the structure of "had been done that," which is why I posted it here. Is it just the fact that "had been done that" is using two past participles in "been" and "done"? Too many verbs? | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 22:19 | comment | added | John Around Him | @everyone Thank you for the timely answers! Yes, most of my students are African American (mostly low-income) and speak in their community dialect, and we emphasize balancing that with Standard English (SE). The question was coming from a grammatical standpoint. To clarify, we are also diagramming sentences, which helps to see the underlying structure of sentences. My students are curious as to how you structure "had been done that" and why it's not standard English. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 17:38 | history | edited | Steven Littman | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Feb 27, 2016 at 17:22 | history | undeleted | Steven Littman | ||
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:58 | history | deleted | Steven Littman | via Vote | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:57 | comment | added | Lawrence | @DanBron (to your first comment) On the contrary, I consider this answer to offer an interesting perspective I hadn't considered: that the phrase that the OP asked about is grammatical in AAVE. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:41 | review | Low quality posts | |||
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| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:36 | comment | added | Dan Bron | @StevenLittman You're not either listening to me, or not hearing me. No one is talking about mistakes or correcting students. It is the students themselves who take an interest in English grammar and want to know the details of what you describe as the "wholly different sentence structure". We should not stifle that curiosity by merely waving our hands and saying "there's more than one way to say it", we should encourage the in interest in grammatical analysis by showing them how to do it. I expect that if you were equipped to do here, you would, rather than falling back on generalities. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:34 | comment | added | Terah | While Baltimore may have a large percentage (of its total population) of African Americans, the question does not mention any specific ethnicity, making the basis for the AAVE answer an assumption. More importantly, as already pointed out, it doesn't appear to answer the question of whether or not the phrase is grammatically correct (in whatever dialect). | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:31 | comment | added | Steven Littman | @Dan Bron--The cited article mentions that construction and what the student means by it. The student means he or she did the homework a while back. Since it's a different dialect, the whole sentence structure is different. The student isn't making a mistake that requires correction; he or she needs to know how to say it in another dialect. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:27 | comment | added | Dan Bron | @StevenLittman That's still a generic, and therefore unhelpful, comment. The students want to know specifically which rules [or expectations] of Standard American grammar are being violated by this construction, and what accounts for -- in the systematic sense -- its presence in AAVE. In other words, this question is seeking a grammatical analysis and answer, not political or social one (which accords better with the charter of our little site here, as well). | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:25 | comment | added | Steven Littman | @The Nate--I did not claim that detractors coined the term Ebonics, but the fact remains that the word does not carry a particularly positive connotation these days. The point is that there are those who would deny the legitimacy of AAVE, and do so loudly. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:23 | comment | added | Steven Littman | @Dan Bron--"I have not been able to give a straight answer as to why this student response is odd for formal English. " Because AAVE, that's why. It seems the poster does not realize the accepted legitimacy of AAVE and the need to become bi-dialectical when it can be advantageous to you. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:22 | comment | added | The Nate | It's also a historically distorted answer, given that the name "ebonics" was coined by proponents of granting the dialect full language status for academic purposes. It is true detractors also call it this, but they did not coin the term. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:16 | comment | added | Dan Bron | This is a generic answer about the difference between AAVE and General American. As such, it's a bit misplaced on a question asking for an analysis and explanation of a specific construction. | |
| Feb 27, 2016 at 14:14 | history | answered | Steven Littman | CC BY-SA 3.0 |