English questions

[Darren]

But, on the other hand, the presence of -n’t seems to be key here:

3. ?? If I had not have had that cake, it would’ve gone mouldy.
4. * If I had have had that cake, it would’ve gone mouldy.

Honestly 4 kinda works for me.

Interesting… for me it’s completely ungrammatical, no uncertainty about it.

"If I had had that cake, it wouldn't've gone mouldy" definitely works for me. So does "If I had've known, I wouldn't've eaten the cake" (only informally though). Combining those to make 4 only makes it a bit weirder.

[bradrn]

"If I had had that cake, it wouldn't've gone mouldy" definitely works for me.

This is just standard English, surely?

So does "If I had've known, I wouldn't've eaten the cake" (only informally though). Combining those to make 4 only makes it a bit weirder.

Maybe the key then is the contraction of have to ’ve [ə], not just not (although I think not definitely helps).

[Richard W]

I think it's a generalisation of 'I could have done that', which doesn't really make a lot of sense when one analyses it.

This particular construction does make sense to me. You just need to notice that English modals don’t really have past tense forms — so if you want to place a modal in the past, you need to use a perfect, and there’s only one syntactically valid way of doing that.

That's a tad difficult when they do, as is most clearly seen when the sequence of tenses rule is applied.

[Travis B.]

"If I had had that cake, it wouldn't've gone mouldy" definitely works for me.

This is just standard English, surely?

This to me is standard English. It does not exude any of the auxiliary funniness that is present in these other examples.

So does "If I had've known, I wouldn't've eaten the cake" (only informally though). Combining those to make 4 only makes it a bit weirder.

Maybe the key then is the contraction of have to ’ve [ə], not just not (although I think not definitely helps).

To me the negation is not necessary, just the reduction of have to [ə]~[əv]~[əf].

[bradrn]

I think it's a generalisation of 'I could have done that', which doesn't really make a lot of sense when one analyses it.

This particular construction does make sense to me. You just need to notice that English modals don’t really have past tense forms — so if you want to place a modal in the past, you need to use a perfect, and there’s only one syntactically valid way of doing that.

That's a tad difficult when they do, as is most clearly seen when the sequence of tenses rule is applied.

What do you mean by ‘the sequence of tenses rule’?

[Travis B.]

This particular construction does make sense to me. You just need to notice that English modals don’t really have past tense forms — so if you want to place a modal in the past, you need to use a perfect, and there’s only one syntactically valid way of doing that.

That's a tad difficult when they do, as is most clearly seen when the sequence of tenses rule is applied.

What do you mean by ‘the sequence of tenses rule’?

Where subordinate clauses agree with the clause to which they are subordinate with regard to tense.

[Travis B.]

One thing that should be remembered is that in many modern English varieties, should is not a past tense/subjunctive counterpart to shall but rather a modal by itself because shall is primarily limited to high registers and is effectively moribund in everyday speech (in this way it reminds me of whom, which I did not know the "correct" usage of before I took some German in college and realized it was the English counterpart to StG wen and wem).

[Raphael]

Sorry for asking something so obvious, but the results of my quick web search on the matter seem to be a bit contradictory:

"Celts" and "Celtic" - hard or soft c?

[anteallach]

Sorry for asking something so obvious, but the results of my quick web search on the matter seem to be a bit contradictory:

"Celts" and "Celtic" - hard or soft c?

Usually hard, but it can be soft in some contexts, e.g. the Glasgow football club.

[Raphael]

Sorry for asking something so obvious, but the results of my quick web search on the matter seem to be a bit contradictory:

"Celts" and "Celtic" - hard or soft c?

Usually hard, but it can be soft in some contexts, e.g. the Glasgow football club.

Thank you. That's roughly what the web search told me, but I wasn't sure if it might be a British vs. American thing.

[malloc]

I have always heard that "Canadian goose" is considered wrong and one should instead say "Canada goose". Why don't other animals follow the same convention, though? Nobody says "Persia cat" or "Ireland setter" or "Africa elephant" after all.

[Travis B.]

I have always heard that "Canadian goose" is considered wrong and one should instead say "Canada goose". Why don't other animals follow the same convention, though? Nobody says "Persia cat" or "Ireland setter" or "Africa elephant" after all.

Because languages aren't "logical".

[Glass Half Baked]

There is a fun folk etymology that the goose is named after ornithologist John Canada, not the country. Alas, there is no record of such a person, and the story is almost certainly a myth created to explain the unusual formula of the name. The nominal use of place names seems more common for plants, as exemplified by the Canada thistle.

[äreo]

There's a similar discrepancy between state and national descriptors for goods. In American English (unlike British English from what I've seen and heard), we typically don't say "Floridian oranges" but rather "Florida oranges"; "Texas brisket" and not "Texan brisket."