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is dropping prepositions a thing? or does DH have an affectation?


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DH will often drop prepositions when talking, and it kind of drives me crazy (especially when the kids pick up his habit). 

 

I'm wondering if this is regional? normal? or just something odd that DH does.

 

Examples:
 

He'd say "are you done your dinner?" instead of "are you done with your dinner?"

 

I think he only drops "with."  Still, it grates!

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DH will often drop prepositions when talking, and it kind of drives me crazy (especially when the kids pick up his habit). 

 

I'm wondering if this is regional? normal? or just something odd that DH does.

 

Examples:

 

He'd say "are you done your dinner?" instead of "are you done with your dinner?"

 

I think he only drops "with."  Still, it grates!

 

I have never heard this before in my life. It would make me crazy, and I would correct my dc who said that, consistently, forever.

 

It must be regional. A very small region. o_0

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I need another example so I don't overfocus on this one... which is, yeah, I don't think I've heard that.

 

Like, would he say, "take you dishes the sink" and drop the "to"? Would he say "my book is my room" and drop the "in"? Would he say "did you make dessert the meal?" and drop the "for"?

 

This is odd. I can't think when it really sounds natural. I mean, English is super flexible, but dropping the prepositions is hard.

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I looked this one up a while back.  IIRC, it's a regionalism that came from Scotland, and became part of speech patterns in English Canada and some parts of the US.   So it's not standard English, but I wouldn't say that it's incorrect per se, just as I wouldn't say that Indian English expressions are incorrect in their cultural context.   But it might be a good idea to change the habit if you move to an area where it's not the norm.   And I say that as someone who used to speak that way until recently. 

 

I'm not entirely sure it's a question of a missing preposition, though.  It could be a missing part of the verb.  As in, "I'm done eating my dinner."  

 

To me, "I'm done with my dinner" carries a slightly different implication:  that there's some left, even though I'm no longer interested in eating it.  As in the fellow diner eyeing the chicken bone and asking, "Are you done with that?"  LOL. 

 

Then again, maybe "I'm done eating my dinner" is non-standard as well?  IDK.  According to this ESL site, even saying "I'm done" is incorrect.   

 

It's stuff like this that makes me wish we'd never switched to rule-based grammar.  I'm so done with Noah Webster.  :001_rolleyes:

 

 

ETA link to post on "done" and finished" at Motivated Grammar blog

Edited by ElizaG
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I looked this one up a while back.  IIRC, it's a regionalism that came from Scotland, and became part of speech patterns in English Canada and some parts of the US.   So it's not standard English, but I wouldn't say that it's incorrect per se, just as I wouldn't say that Indian English expressions are incorrect in their cultural context.   But it might be a good idea to change the habit if you move to an area where it's not the norm.   And I say that as someone who used to speak that way until recently. 

 

I'm not entirely sure it's a question of a missing preposition, though.  It could be a missing part of the verb.  As in, "I'm done eating my dinner."  

 

To me, "I'm done with my dinner" carries a slightly different implication:  that there's some left, even though I'm no longer interested in eating it.  As in the fellow diner eyeing the chicken bone and asking, "Are you done with that?"  LOL. 

 

Then again, maybe "I'm done eating my dinner" is non-standard as well?  IDK.  According to this ESL site, even saying "I'm done" is incorrect.   

 

It's stuff like this that makes me wish we'd never switched from normative to prescriptive grammar.  I'm so done with Noah Webster.  :001_rolleyes:

 

Are you sure you're not finished with him? 

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I've been trying to think of over examples, and they're all in the context of being finished with some task, so "with" is the dropped preposition. (With 4 kiddos, I think I hear "are you done your XXX" daily!)

 

He grew up in the Philadelphia area, so when texasmama heard this from someone in Maryland, that made me think it could be regional. 

 

I think I'll ask him to try and diagram his sentence in order to prove my point  :lol:

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Haven't heard this one.  My English teacher mother and grandmother would probably say the "done" part is most incorrect.  You're not a roast; you are "finished".  I still get corrected on grammar from my mom and I'm almost 40 (and pretty well spoken).  I try to correct myself when my mom is in the house, and I'm asking my kids if they are finished with something.  "Kids, are you done..err...finished with lunch!"

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I looked this one up a while back.  IIRC, it's a regionalism that came from Scotland, and became part of speech patterns in English Canada and some parts of the US.   So it's not standard English, but I wouldn't say that it's incorrect per se, just as I wouldn't say that Indian English expressions are incorrect in their cultural context.   But it might be a good idea to change the habit if you move to an area where it's not the norm.   And I say that as someone who used to speak that way until recently. 

 

I'm not entirely sure it's a question of a missing preposition, though.  It could be a missing part of the verb.  As in, "I'm done eating my dinner."  

 

To me, "I'm done with my dinner" carries a slightly different implication:  that there's some left, even though I'm no longer interested in eating it.  As in the fellow diner eyeing the chicken bone and asking, "Are you done with that?"  LOL. 

 

Then again, maybe "I'm done eating my dinner" is non-standard as well?  IDK.  According to this ESL site, even saying "I'm done" is incorrect.   

 

It's stuff like this that makes me wish we'd never switched to rule-based grammar.  I'm so done with Noah Webster.  :001_rolleyes:

 

 

ETA link to post on "done" and finished" at Motivated Grammar blog

 

Great link!  My mom could have written that because she is particular about done vs finished, along w so many other grammatical errors I make!  Best of luck to someone who responds with "absolutely" when they mean "yes" to my mom!

 

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Haven't heard this one.  My English teacher mother and grandmother would probably say the "done" part is most incorrect.  You're not a roast; you are "finished".  I still get corrected on grammar from my mom and I'm almost 40 (and pretty well spoken).  I try to correct myself when my mom is in the house, and I'm asking my kids if they are finished with something.  "Kids, are you done..err...finished with lunch!"

 

:iagree: :iagree: :iagree:

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Having moved to an area where people routinely leave out the "with", I feel your pain.  It breaks my little grammatical heart when I hear my kids do it.  The one I hear often is "done school" (in addition to the "done lunch/dinner"). For example: "What time are you done school most days?"  asks the friendly other homeschooling mom.  I want to poke my eyeballs out. 

 

FWIW, I have recently been able to point out to my children a little bit about it due to our grammar lessons and how we've been looking at sentence structure.  I am hopeful that they will now notice and believe me that it does not sound particularly good.

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I'm going with the Canada thing... I can't figure out what's wrong with "Are you done your dinner?"

Are you done your drink?

Have you finished your meal?

Have you finished/are you done your book?

Are you done that game?

I'm Canadian and all of those examples sound like normal speech in this area.

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I'm Canadian and all of those examples sound like normal speech in this area.

 

Yes.  I couldn't figure out the problem.

I have a grammar maven for a mother.  She certainly never corrected that form.

Then again, nobody I know was ever taught diagramming in school, either, so I don't know whether diagramming the sentence would show us there was a problem or not!  But in any case, regionally it is a completely accepted usage and doesn't make us twitch.

 

"Are you finished your book?"

"I'm not done yet."

 

Both completely acceptable here.  And, looking at the sentences, I'm also not convinced it's the preposition that gets left out.  It could be the verb, and an additional pronoun.

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The funny thing is, for several years of marriage, my husband didn't notice my speaking that way.  Then one of our children picked up the habit.  "Wait, I'm not done my apple!"   At that point, DH sort of flipped out, and wanted to know why I was saying something so bizarrely incorrect.   And in turn, I found his objections to be bizarre, because it sounded completely normal to me.   

 

That's when I looked it up.  DH had to concede that it's not that strange in global terms, and I had to concede that it is strange where we're living now.   For my children's sake -- since I'm their one and only English teacher -- I've chosen to switch all such constructions to the more formal "have finished."  

 

But child-who-eats-apples-slowly is still firmly attached to the Hiberno-Scottish-Canuckish usage, and I'm not going to correct it.  It still sounds fine to me.  And who knows... maybe it will spread.  It's my teeny tiny act of reverse cultural imperialism.  ;)  

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Yes.  I couldn't figure out the problem.

I have a grammar maven for a mother.  She certainly never corrected that form.

Then again, nobody I know was ever taught diagramming in school, either, so I don't know whether diagramming the sentence would show us there was a problem or not!  But in any case, regionally it is a completely accepted usage and doesn't make us twitch.

 

"Are you finished your book?"

"I'm not done yet."

 

Both completely acceptable here.  And, looking at the sentences, I'm also not convinced it's the preposition that gets left out.  It could be the verb, and an additional pronoun.

 

 

I'm going with the Canada thing... I can't figure out what's wrong with "Are you done your dinner?"

Are you done your drink?

Have you finished your meal?

Have you finished/are you done your book?

Are you done that game?

I have read a discussion by a Texan living in Maryland who was losing her mind over this. I think the really sticky part was that the offenders teased her relentlessly for her Texasisms, but she wasn't allowed tit for tat. 

 

I have also seen this construction from a Canadian I know. Interesting the Scottish. I have wondered how this odd construction found it's way to such disparate regions. 

Arctic Bunny, that whole post made she grit my teeth! I have never seen such a concentration of missing prepositions, and YES kiara, They Are Missing! Aaaaahhhhh!!!!

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Here's one of the threads I found back then, from wordreference.com.  Some interesting data points.

 

I am done my work VS I am done with my work. [regional variation]

 

 

ETA links to two newer pages, including maps of the US:

 

Ă¢â‚¬Å“I am finished my sandwichĂ¢â‚¬ sounds correct but Ă¢â‚¬Å“I am started my sandwichĂ¢â‚¬ does not? - StackExchange

Done My Homework - Yale Grammatical Diversity Project

 

Also, the chat from the StackExchange thread has a link to a semi-related blog post on transitive adjectives.  (I promise never to say "the bank is underweight growth stocks."  I have no idea what that even means! :huh: )

Edited by ElizaG
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I have also seen this construction from a Canadian I know. Interesting the Scottish. I have wondered how this odd construction found it's way to such disparate regions. 

 

I haven't heard it in Scotland, but a) Scotland has a multitude of dialects - mountains breed linguistic difference and b) it might be something that has died out since it crossed the Atlantic.

 

In my area, I don't much hear 'done' used to mean 'finished', with or without a preposition.

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DH will often drop prepositions when talking, and it kind of drives me crazy (especially when the kids pick up his habit). 

 

I'm wondering if this is regional? normal? or just something odd that DH does.

 

Examples:

 

He'd say "are you done your dinner?" instead of "are you done with your dinner?"

 

I think he only drops "with."  Still, it grates!

I have never heard either expression before. Here people ask Have you finished eating?

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Hmm. I just finished reading all the posts.

 

 

 My DH is Canadian, but had parents were immigrants that did not have English as their first language. My DH has never used done when he means finished. I have never heard anyone use done to mean finished. It jars my ears just reading it in these posts.

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I'm going with the Canada thing... I can't figure out what's wrong with "Are you done your dinner?"

Are you done your drink?

Have you finished your meal?

Have you finished/are you done your book?

Are you done that game?

 

I have never heard either expression before. Here people ask Have you finished eating?

 

This is interesting.... It never even occurred to me that I speak strangely. I assumed it might be an Aussie thing but Melissa says she hasn't heard it, so even here it must be reigonal. Where I live people frequently use done to mean finished, and I can just hear my mothers voice in my head saying 'are you done that game/project?'. Or she would say 'are you done school?' when we were homeschooling.

 

Does 'have you finished dinner' sound weird? Or is it just the particular phrasing of the OP that's weird?

 

Yeah, sorry, it all sounds pretty normal and acceptable in my neck of the woods. 

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I haven't heard it in Scotland, but a) Scotland has a multitude of dialects - mountains breed linguistic difference and b) it might be something that has died out since it crossed the Atlantic.

 

In my area, I don't much hear 'done' used to mean 'finished', with or without a preposition.

There were a few Scottish and Irish posters on the wordreference.com thread.   They were familiar with "I'm finished my homework," but found "I'm done my homework" to be strange, as it didn't fit with their way of using the word "done."

 

Canadians would tend to accept both of the above constructions, while most in the US would accept neither of them.

 

At the same time, though, just about everyone in the US finds it perfectly acceptable to say "I'm finished with...," which seems incorrect to many speakers of British English (who would say "I've finished with"). 

 

It seems as if grammar in the US has developed its own mixture of relaxation and fussiness, depending on the point in question.  :001_smile:

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Does 'have you finished dinner' sound weird? Or is it just the particular phrasing of the OP that's weird?

 

To me it sounds a little hyperformal for the topic of dinner and the eating thereof. I would never put together those words in that order for that meaning. It's not ungrammatical, per se, but it's the wrong register entirely for my dialect.

Edited by Tanaqui
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I've never heard anyone speak like that anywhere in the States or in Canada. I've certainly heard a lot of interesting and jarring regional differences, but never leaving out a "with". That would leave me all kinds of twitchy!

 

Where we lived in MN it was common to end sentences with "with", as in, "Do you want to come with?". My ears could not used to it all the years we lived there, but recently I've heard myself say it a few times. Funny how we pick things up, or not, and how we decide for others what is correct according to our own individual tastes and experiences.

 

I'll admit I'm having more difficulty teaching grammar, in that so many of the old "comfortable" rules no longer seem so important. Several times recently I've told DS that while I learned a rule the way it's taught in the book, it really might not be considered correct or necessary any longer. The more I learn about how fluid and regional grammar really is, the more comfortable (or at least the less uncomfortable) I am about not insisting that it's black and white. Clearly, given all the discussions on our very diverse board, it simply isn't.

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I have read a discussion by a Texan living in Maryland who was losing her mind over this. I think the really sticky part was that the offenders teased her relentlessly for her Texasisms, but she wasn't allowed tit for tat. 

 

 

I was a Texan living in Maryland.  Not all Maryland natives used the dropped preposition sentence structure, but I did encounter it, as stated earlier in this thread.  No one made fun of me for my "y'alls", though.  I do not have a heavy Texan/Southern/country accent in general unless I am speaking with someone who has one, and then I tend to slip into a bit.  I do the same after reading aloud Tom Sawyer.   :lol:

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I've been trying to think of over examples, and they're all in the context of being finished with some task, so "with" is the dropped preposition. (With 4 kiddos, I think I hear "are you done your XXX" daily!)

 

He grew up in the Philadelphia area, so when texasmama heard this from someone in Maryland, that made me think it could be regional.

 

I think I'll ask him to try and diagram his sentence in order to prove my point :lol:

What point is it you want to make? That you disapprove of his native dialect?

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Most of the examples are making me twitch, but then I got to Arctic Bunny's post:

I'm going with the Canada thing... I can't figure out what's wrong with "Are you done your dinner?"
Are you done your drink?
Have you finished your meal?
Have you finished/are you done your book?
Are you done that game?

 

And I realized that "have you finished your meal?" sounds perfectly normal to me. (None of the rest do.) The statement version sounds just fine, too. So, perhaps I've been guilty of leaving out some prepositions!

 

I've never heard anyone speak like that anywhere in the States or in Canada. I've certainly heard a lot of interesting and jarring regional differences, but never leaving out a "with". That would leave me all kinds of twitchy!

Where we lived in MN it was common to end sentences with "with", as in, "Do you want to come with?"

 

This is very common to hear in the middle of the US. Most of us have been taught not to end a sentence with a preposition, but do it all the time anyway. More commonly, "Do you wanna go with?"  :lol:

Edited by RootAnn
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This is very common to hear in the middle of the US. Most of us have been taught not to end a sentence with a preposition, but do it all the time anyway. More commonly, "Do you wanna go with?"  :lol:

 

I asked dd the other day "Do you want to hang with your friends?"  It took her a moment to get it!  (Because this is a written medium I used bold to show what word I emphasized.  )  The response was a laugh and a "Mom! I can't believe you said that!"

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This is interesting.... It never even occurred to me that I speak strangely. I assumed it might be an Aussie thing but Melissa says she hasn't heard it, so even here it must be reigonal. Where I live people frequently use done to mean finished, and I can just hear my mothers voice in my head saying 'are you done that game/project?'. Or she would say 'are you done school?' when we were homeschooling.

 

Does 'have you finished dinner' sound weird? Or is it just the particular phrasing of the OP that's weird?

 

Yeah, sorry, it all sounds pretty normal and acceptable in my neck of the woods. 

 

 

Most of the examples are making me twitch, but then I got to Arctic Bunny's post:

 

And I realized that "have you finished your meal?" sounds perfectly normal to me. (None of the rest do.) The statement version sounds just fine, too. So, perhaps I've been guilty of leaving out some prepositions!

 

 

This is very common to hear in the middle of the US. Most of us have been taught not to end a sentence with a preposition, but do it all the time anyway. More commonly, "Do you wanna go with?"  :lol:

 

I bolded the bits I wanted to point out.  The regional expression here actually does not have the "have" - so it is "ARE you finished your snack?"  with a response of "Yes, I am done my apple."  

 

So hard on the mind/ears.

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Most of the examples are making me twitch, but then I got to Arctic Bunny's post:

 

And I realized that "have you finished your meal?" sounds perfectly normal to me. (None of the rest do.) The statement version sounds just fine, too. So, perhaps I've been guilty of leaving out some prepositions!

 

Around here, "have you finished your meal" would be normal, whereas "are you finished your meal" or "are you done your meal?" would sound improper. Similarly, a correct response could be "I have finished my meal" but not "I am finished my meal" or "I am done my meal." 

 

It's normal to ask, "are you done?" completely leaving off the words "with your meal," but the whole phrase would be implied--we don't mean "are you done your meal," LOL!

 

Clearly I need to read the done/finished links!

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Canadian answer: totally normal to me.

 

I can see how someone might be "done (or finished) eating dinner" -- but what is implied by being "done with" dinner. "With" doesn't seem to have relevant propositional connotations to me.

 

I'm only really "done with" things that are leaving me to go somewhere else, "with" someone else. "I'm done with your snow shovel."

 

Or, maybe, otherwise, "I'm done (playing) with my Lego." I'm never "done eating with my dinner" -- I don't "eat with" my dinner. I simply eat it. (I "eat with" my fork... So, I do say I'm "done with" my fork, if I'm ready to be rid of it.)

 

I didn't know it was odd. It makes perfect sense to me.

Edited by bolt.
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What point is it you want to make? That you disapprove of his native dialect?

 

Nope, not at all. We're hugely fascinated by regional dialects and are curious to see which our children adopt as they grow. (I'm Midwestern, he's Philadelphia-area, we live in CA - there's a lot to play with.) He fronts all kind of vowels and kindly chides me for my inability to pronounce half of the vowels that he can. 

 

Mostly, I wanted to know if this is a standard speech pattern or if it's just a quirk of his. I thought I'd crowd-source opinions here as there are many geographic regions (and grammar opinions) represented. 

 

I've been really interested in the replies. Thanks!

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I don't say it & I don't believe it's the norm around here, but I think I've heard it somewhere... maybe on TV?  It doesn't bother me.

 

Canadian answer: totally normal to me.

I can see how someone might be "done (or finished) eating dinner" -- but what is implied by being "done with" dinner. "With" doesn't seem to have relevant propositional connotations to me.

I'm only really "done with" things that are leaving me to go somewhere else, "with" someone else. "I'm done with your snow shovel."

Or, maybe, otherwise, "I'm done (playing) with my Lego." I'm never "done eating with my dinner" -- I don't "eat with" my dinner. I simply eat it. (I "eat with" my fork... So, I do say I'm "done with" my fork, if I'm ready to be rid of it.)

I didn't know it was odd. It makes perfect sense to me.

 

No, it would be "I'm done with eating my dinner".  Just like "I'm finished with eating my dinner."

 

There's also a difference with "Have you finished your dinner?" and "Are you finished WITH your dinner?"  One needs the with (to follow the norm around here), the other does not.

 

All of these variations mean the same thing.  They *could* have slightly different meanings depending on the context, but they would be used interchangeably here.

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Canadian answer: totally normal to me.

 

I can see how someone might be "done (or finished) eating dinner" -- but what is implied by being "done with" dinner. "With" doesn't seem to have relevant propositional connotations to me.

 

I'm only really "done with" things that are leaving me to go somewhere else, "with" someone else. "I'm done with your snow shovel."

 

Or, maybe, otherwise, "I'm done (playing) with my Lego." I'm never "done eating with my dinner" -- I don't "eat with" my dinner. I simply eat it. (I "eat with" my fork... So, I do say I'm "done with" my fork, if I'm ready to be rid of it.)

 

I didn't know it was odd. It makes perfect sense to me.

Exactly. If I am clearing plates from the table, I would say, "Are you finished with your plate?"

 

To me, "with" implies that another action is to follow, depending on your answer.

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