Timeline for Historical and contemporary usage of "don't" for the third singular person
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 16, 2017 at 16:40 | comment | added | Brian J | That is subjunctive. 'If' was considered a trigger for the subjunctive. | |
| Mar 16, 2017 at 15:54 | comment | added | DavePhD | If French grammar books count: "Now it will avail an Englishman but little to know, that of is expressed in French by de, if he don't know which relations of things the prepositions a and de denote in that language " books.google.com/… | |
| Mar 12, 2017 at 19:33 | comment | added | user66974 | @BrianJ - no I don't think that there is a way to make that distinction, but that doesn't change the nature of my question. | |
| Mar 11, 2017 at 22:05 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | Uh… are you guys talking about formal writing or vernacular, dialect and idiom, please? From listening to British and reading US English speakers it seems to me axiomatic ‘He don't know where he is going’ is far too common to be dismissed as merely wrong. It might be much further up Maxwell Q. Klinger’s street than Charles Winchester III’s and still, is this a purely academic discussion or what, please? | |
| Mar 11, 2017 at 19:21 | history | edited | Glorfindel | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 5 characters in body
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| Mar 11, 2017 at 19:07 | history | edited | Brian J | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 18 characters in body
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| Mar 11, 2017 at 19:05 | comment | added | Brian J | By the way, ngrams may present a distorted picture, because "If he don't" or "though he don't" would have been considered valid subjunctive forms in certain contexts. I would be interested if you found a way to distinguish subjunctive "he don't" from indicative nonstandard "he don't". | |
| Mar 11, 2017 at 19:01 | history | answered | Brian J | CC BY-SA 3.0 |