No that's no slang, it's simply stupid, uneducated talk. But what else is new with stuff coming out of Tinseltown.

That's what I thought and I don't quite understand how such strong violations of grammar can establish amongst native speakers. It doesn't even sound funny or cool, it's just really annoying :)

When considering language used on TV or in film, consider 1) who is saying it and 2) in what context it is being said.

TV (and to a lesser extent film) must establish character quickly, so will use language as a shortcut to (stereo)type someone. "Ya shoulda took the money" establishes the character as uneducated and most likely a thug.

An educated character might use "shoulda took" in an ironic/sarcastic way in order to sound uneducated but would do so deliberately.

The construction remains wrong.

Moral: Look to Hollywood only for entertainment, not for anything serious, like education, language, philosophy or religion.

Can we please call the construction non-standard and leave it at that? There's really no need to disparage the people using it. That said, I've heard all kinds of non-standard constructions (including this one) from highly educated speakers.

That's what I thought and I don't quite understand how such strong violations of grammar can establish amongst native speakers.
This is not how language works. The grammar of non-standard varieties is just as regular (or irregular) as that of the standard variety, it's just different. There's nothing intrinsically worse about them, it's just the way the conventions have played out, an historical accident, if you will, that could well have gone the other way.

It doesn't even sound funny or cool, it's just really annoying
As a student of English, you should appreciate variety, not condemn it. And of course it's a bad idea to mimic native speakers' irrational reactions to the use non-standard language.

@ ThomasJ, don't be obstreperous :-))
Not everyone subscribes to that multicultural nonsense which does not necessarily foster correct use of a language. See?

@Helmi: ThomasJ was not saying that "you should have took" is "correct". He identified it as non-standard. But, I agree with him, it is a mistake to tell German speakers that this usage is a sign that the user is stupid, or "a thug". It just means that they don't speak standard English; neither more nor less. (Of course, they may be uneducated, or stupid, or a thug, --but so may users of standard English.)

I don't quite understand how such strong violations of grammar can establish amongst native speakers. It doesn't even sound funny or cool, it's just really annoying.

Wieso? Das gleiche passiert doch tagtäglich auch bei deutschen Muttersprachlern. Ich denke da zum Beispiel an einen Ausdruck wie "mein Bruder seine Freundin". Eine "strong violation of grammar", die ebenfalls weder "funny" noch "cool" ist. Ich würde das zwar nie über die Lippen bringen, aber dennoch ist es für weite Bevölkerungsschichten (zumindest im mündlichen) eine völlig normale "Genitivstruktur".

I don't agree that the construction is merely "non-standard".

There's no doubt that it is non-standard. But language usage is a marker of education and status and class. People hear other people speak and make judgments about them. (Whether they should or not is a different issue; the fact is that they do.) Judgments based on people's speech are often not neutral, and they are often negative. The majority of English speaker (at least AE) would hear "I shoulda took" or "I should have took" as a mark of an uneducated person.

This usage is not only non-standard, it is generally considered sub-standard.

When we native speakers say that a certain expression is merely non-standard, and that its use is neutral, we're not reflecting reality. I don't think that we disparage people by simply reporting how their speech is perceived by others. We do a disservice to non-native speakers when we pretend that an expression is merely a variant, without also saying how it's generally perceived.

@Eric: I think there's some confusion about the term nonstandard here. The AHD defines it as

2. Linguistics Associated with a language variety used by uneducated speakers or socially disfavored groups.

This is exactly what you called substandard, a term that is generally avoided, for reasons explained in this AHD usage note.

So I have no problem with saying that the use of the construction at hand is stigmatized to some extent, that is if people notice it, which they generally don't (We had an example of a native NAE speaker here in this forum who claimed to have never heard the construction).

And, I'm sorry, I do think that we disparage people by calling the way they talk 'stupid'.

@Martin #6: Please read my post #3 again. I did not say someone using this construction is a "thug"; I said that Hollywood uses the construction as a kind of shorthand to establish character. Like it or not, most Hollywood productions deal in sterotypes and play off common perceptions of sartorial, linguistic, cosmetic and other ideosyncracies.
-A girl with glasses is intelligent but not attractive until she removes the glasses and lets down her hair
-Except for programs like "7th Heaven" ministers - especially theologically conservative ones - speak with a Midwestern or Southern accent.
-Nerds have buck teeth and wear glasses that have been repaired with tape.
-Evil geniuses are such ego-maniacs that they will always boast and reveal their entire plan, thus giving the hero an opportunity to escape and thwart the plan

The caveat was that simply because someone has heard a certain construction on television even numerous times (see the original question), that does not lend legitimacy to the construction. Perhaps I should have been more specific: "You shoulda/should have took" remains wrong for anyone speaking Standard American English.

The other caveat is still true: don't look to Hollywood for anything other than entertainment (and sometimes they fail miserably at that as well).

It should, of course, be "You should of taken the money". (;-)

Non-natives, please ignore this comment.

Beim Lesen des Fadens hier bin ich etwas mit dem "nonstandard" durcheinander gekommen. (Habe in Linguistik auch nie wirklich aufgepasst)

"should have took" ist doch grammatikalisch falsch, oder? Sei es nun AE oder BE.

Ist demnach "nonstandard" auch mit grammtikalisch falsch gleich zu setzen, oder kann "nonstandard" auch einfach eine unübliche/mundartliche Ausdrucksweise beschreiben, die aber trotzdem grammatikalisch korrekt ist?

@ThomasJ #9: Thank you for that information on the usage of nonstandard. Very interesting.

However, in spite of the AHD statement "Nonstandard is not simply a euphemism", the term to me does seem euphemist . At the least, it's deficient and misleading, in that it fails to convey - and in fact avoids - its central meaning: "Associated with a language variety used by uneducated speakers or socially disavored groups". "Non" is intentionally value-less (i.e., without assigning a value), while "uneducated speakers" and "socially disfavored groups" certainly are value laden terms.

It's fine for special fields such as linguistics to define special terms for their own experts talking to one another, but if the term is also one that's already s widely used in standard speech with a different meaning, it's quite likely to be misunderstood by a non-specialist. No one but a linguist would realize that "nonstandard" (without explanation) that it is intended to mean to refer to language used by uneducate speakers or socially disfavored groups. That meaning is hidden and inaccessible. (It would be like biologists saying that "when we say blue we mean grean, for such-and-such arefully considered reasons". If biology specialists do then accept the different meaning, then there is no difficulty in terminology when it's be used by biologists to other biologists, but there is a big difficulty if a biologist (or someone who knows biological terminology) then uses the term to a non-specialist: the term will be misunderstood.

That's the danger here with "non-standard", and in fact the likely result. We do a disservice to non-specialists if we use specialist terminolgy in its specialist meaning and imagine that the specialist meaning will be properly understood by the non-specialist reader. A non-specialist (the normal LEO person) would hear "nonstandard" and say "oh, that's merely different; a variant". And in normal parlance he'd be right in interpreting non-standard that way, but if the speaker is using nonstandard in its specialist meaning, including its covert and non-obvious definition, then that results in misunderstanding.

That's what's happening here, I think. A non-specialist non-native speaker in LEO will hear the term nonstandard and say to himself, oh, that's just a different way to say something, neither better nor worse. (Like "I say to-may-to, you say to-may-to" where both variant are widely accepted and not merely among socially disfavored groups.)

Again, I think we (as native speakers) do non-native speakers a disservice when we use a familiar word (nonstandard) in a special (lingusistic) meaning which differs from the familiar meaning. In this case, we're misleading them because they will hear the standard phrase and miss the special meaning. We have a duty in the LEO context to use standard words, unless we want to be misunderstood (or if we intend to mislead).

It's not "disparaging people" to accurately report that they use speech expressions generally considered uneducated or associated with disfavored groups. By making such a statement I'm not saying anything about an individual - certainly not calling him stupid; I'm merely reporting accurately how the word is generally perceived. And I have a responsibility to explain, this rather than hide behind a word like "nonstandard" where this sense of the word is known only by specialist. Of course, you do this clealy in #9, but you didn't in #4, where you wrote "Can we please call the construction non-standard and leave it at that? " In my view: no, not without explaining that non-standard (as a specialist word) means "generally considered uneducated" and "associated with disavored groups" .

My alternative "substandard" - though it may be disfavored by the specialists - does have the substantial advantage of quickly and simply conveying these central concepts non-specialist reader, who is our audience here.

In fact, Helmi's comment #1 (No that's no slang, it's simply stupid, uneducated talk. ) is precisely an illustration of this "generally considered uneducated" view of this word.

(Forgive me if I'm rambled a bit here - I'm tired now - but I hope my point is clear.)

I'm reading my posting #13 several hours later, and I apologize for the sloppiness (grammar, spelling, etc.) But I hope my points are clear.

Ich moechte ThomasJ fuer die Erklaerung des Begriffs "non-standard", zumindest im AHD, danken. Und ich muss eric voellig recht geben: Als Nicht-Muttersprachler und Nicht-Linguist haette ich "non-standard" definitiv als wertfrei verstanden. In der Art: eine Formulierung, die ich gebrauchen kann, wenn ich gewollt altmodisch/weltfremd/gestelzt klingen will. Ich haette es niemals direkt mit "badly educated" assoziiert.