Seen vs. Saw, which do you say?

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yoothgeye

yoothgeye

I build stuff.
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"Hey, I just saw a guy riding a cool bike."

or

"Hey, I just seen a guy riding a cool bike."

I have always used "saw" and then in my last youth group I had a student who says "seen" all the time. I just thought it was maybe her education, but then I started hearing other people using that word the same way, the common denominator? They were from up north, I've grown up and always lived in the south.

Is this really a thing?
 
yooth,
The proper word in your phrase is 'saw', it's the simple past tense Seen is the past participle,

Proper wording and tense are a peeve of mine, like misuse of to, two, and too or your and you're or here and hear. Drives me nuts!
 
I'm going to say I'm guilty of saying seen when I should use saw, I also have a problem with saying "was" referring to a present or future event. Example from bike shop: Was that bike going to be fixed soon? I also use cain't (can + ain't) though I rarely use ain't. Example from karaoke : I cain't get no, satis faction. no no no. :mrgreen:

I will say I do know the rules though I just don't follow them :wink:
 
Dr. Tankenstein said:
yooth,
The proper word in your phrase is 'saw', it's the simple past tense Seen is the past participle,

Proper wording and tense are a peeve of mine, like misuse of to, two, and too or your and you're or here and hear. Drives me nuts!
Click to expand...

Kinda like misspelling some words and forgetting punctuation eh? LOL
 
Dr. Tankenstein said:
yooth,
The proper word in your phrase is 'saw', it's the simple past tense Seen is the past participle,

Proper wording and tense are a peeve of mine, like misuse of to, two, and too or your and you're or here and hear. Drives me nuts!
Click to expand...

I too am a bit of a stickler, and though I knew that my given example was correct with "saw" I didn't want to make anyone feel bad because from what I've seen (<-- see what I did there?) it is mostly a regional thing and I'm wondering if it is being taught to people that way in other areas.

Around here if someone uses "seen" in the place of where I would use "saw" my next interaction with them is usually "Where are you from?" Resoundingly, it's not from around here.
 
It's definitely a northern mistake.

You don't hear it much down here in Texas, so when you read or hear it, it stands out like a sore thumb. :lol:
 
I don't know if it's northern or not. It's not taught that way here in Iowa. I believe it may just be people who didn't pay attention in school.
 
When I went to school up in Wisconsin they labeled me a southerner :lol: The thing that got me was directions, they would call gas stations "stop and go's" and what I call stop lights, they called "go lights". Getting directions based off turning at traffic lights and gas stations were extremely confusing for me at the time. Granted this is just from what I experienced from the other "local" people at a technical college over a 2 month period.

I've also got friends originally from the Chicago area, when they go back up north to visit friends and family, they come back down talking with a thick Chicago accent for about week. It made me want to tell them to stop talking just because I know they could talk normal :lol:
 
RatSphinx said:
I don't know if it's northern or not. It's not taught that way here in Iowa. I believe it may just be people who didn't pay attention in school.
Click to expand...

I just meant that it's a grammatical error that you hear more up north than you do down south.

Lived in Michigan and Illinois for 11 years and heard it a lot up there.

It's never really used much down here, but we've got our own share of mistakes. :lol:
 
The girl I first heard using it was from Michigan. Her mom and dad used it the same way, so I thought it was just them until hearing others and seeing it typed, all from up north in the US and Canada (their south I guess), but mid to east.
 
improper use of the word seen is a youth/culture thing. Similar to "I got my hair did". I mis-use seen on occasion to be funny. I don't think it's a dialect or geography thing.
 
It reminds me of the "creek" vs. "crick" thing.

People in Texas do not say "crick" unless there's a problem with their back or neck. :lol:

Most of the folks in Michigan referred to it as a "crick" instead of a "creek."

"You guys" vs. "Yall"...."Coke" or "Soda" vs. "Pop"...etc.
 
Y'all is in my vocabulary, the problem is, I can't fix it, I never know what to replace it with. I guess I just need to stop addressing entire groups of people, which is hard as a youth pastor.
 
I used to give a guy I knew from North Carolina a hard time because he said he was from the "real" south.

I'd say....you're a Yankee as far as I'm concerned...just look at how far north that is on a map!

We Texans have a way of pestering folks north of the Red River. :lol:
 
Rat Rod said:
I used to give a guy I knew from North Carolina a hard time because he said he was from the "real" south.

I'd say....you're a Yankee as far as I'm concerned...just look at how far north that is on a map!

We Texans have a way of pestering folks north of the Red River. :lol:
Click to expand...
No Yankee here, I'm way too far out in the sticks, but I can see where you're coming from as far down on the map as Texas is haha :lol:
 

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