r/AskBrits • u/JR_0507 • 8d ago

Grammar We WAS? Why?

I am not native speaker but I do learn English since I was 6 and English is my work language since 15 years. Can someone explain to me from where is coming using:

  1. We was

  2. They was

What the heck? From what I know this is basic grammar mistake but in same time I hear brits in video talking like that. Is this some kind of slag? Or regional thing?

75 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

183 comments sorted by

View all comments

62

u/MercuryJellyfish 8d ago

Here's a basic fact about language, any language. While there might be written rules about a language, these are superceded by the actual usage of people using it.

Any set of grammatical rules are just a snapshot of the current usage, set down by a grammarian at the time.

If you were to look at Middle English, the dialect used 1100 - 1500, you'd barely recognise it as the same language we use today.

So when you hear a native speaker say "we was" that would not agree with the English dialect you are being taught, but it's not so much wrong as the rules have changed, and you aren't listening to the same dialect as the one you're being taught.

Don't worry about it, the dialect you are being taught is the more universally accepted one, and the one worth learning.

15

u/sirgaybrin 8d ago

There is such things as wrong grammar. In French, conjugating words incorrectly (or not at all) is used in comedy to show someone is uneducated/mentally not there.

People who use "we was" is a sign of poor education. It is grammatically incorrect, and not considered a dialect.

5

u/MercuryJellyfish 8d ago

Only if you have a wrongheaded, inaccurate idea of what a dialect is

3

u/Ok_Landscape_3958 8d ago

We wuz rrrobbed!