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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Vocabulary

Can anyone answer the question below?

I received the text below in a document and think there are 1 or 2 errors, but the main one is the use of "...we would of expected...". I think this should have read, "...we would have expected..." but when I mentioned this to the person who wrote it, who has a Law Degree, I was told that in written English you use "of" but in verbal English you use "have". This doesn't sound correct to me; can anyone help?

From this the overall delay to the contract can be assessed as being from 18 July 2011 the date we would of expected the delivery of the data to perform the electrical analysis to 17 October 2011 the date of final receipt of
the data to perform the hydraulic analysis.
This represents 13 working weeks.
  

Top answer

when I mentioned this to the person who wrote it, who has a Law Degree, I was told that in written English you use "of" but in verbal English you use "have". This doesn't sound correct to me; can anyone help? -- I didn't know that lawyers could be so illiterate.

  • when I mentioned this to the person who wrote it, who has a Law Degree, I was told that in written English you use "of" but in verbal English you use "have".
  • This doesn't sound correct to me; can anyone help?
  • -- I didn't know that lawyers could be so illiterate.
  • The best that can be said is that with 'would have', most native speakers pronounce it 'would've', which sounds like 'would of'.
  • 'Would of' is incorrect and unacceptable in any situation.
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1 Answers
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...when I mentioned this to the person who wrote it, who has a Law Degree, I was told that in written English you use "of" but in verbal English you use "have". This doesn't sound correct to me; can anyone help?-- I didn't know that lawyers could be so illiterate. The best that can be said is that with 'would have', most native speakers pronounce it 'would've', which sounds like 'wo

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