# I gonna/ I'm gonna



## senga89

hi,

which is the correct form? I gonna or I'm gonna? I always use I'm gonna but I also see I gonna and is confusing me.

thank you


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## senga89

thank you. I know that but for example I always say "I'm gonna miss you" but sometimes I hear people saying 'I gonna miss you' and I'm not sure why.


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## Loob

Hi senga

I think we need to go back a step.

When you say





senga89 said:


> ... I also see I gonna


do you mean that you see "I gonna" in writing?

If so the answer is that both "I'm gonna" and "I gonna" are wrong in writing - unless the writer concerned is deliberately trying to reflect a particular pronunciation.

The standard written form is "I'm going to".

-----------

Later

Ah ... 





senga89 said:


> sometimes I hear people saying 'I gonna  miss you' and I'm not sure why.


it seems that you sometimes hear,  rather than see, "I gonna".

I haven't heard that myself: the /m/ is always there, though it might sometimes sound like an /n/ or a /ŋ/.


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## dharasty

Continuing Loob's point, "gonna" would be considered "the vernacular", meaning it is how people speak, but it is not how people write.  At least not in formal writing.

You might see it written: 
- in a text message (an SMS message) between friends.
- when an author in a work of fiction is attempting to capture the vernacular of the character.

In that case, it is up to the author to decide if his character would say "I'm gonna" or "I gonna".


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## senga89

Sorry, yes I meant in writing, but sometimes in conersations I hear " I gonna miss you" and I always use "I'm gonna miss you"


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## Loob

senga89 said:


> ... but sometimes in conersations I hear " I gonna miss you" ...


I think that's unlikely, senga - see the edit to my post 3.


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## senga89

thank you for your answers


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## Dopplereffekt

Although it's not the same word but I guess it's in the same league of colloquial/ slang words: I recently read _"wanna"_ in a subtitle of a BluRay disc which was rather surprising. It was an episode of star trek the next generation from the 90s. The show itself is known for its use of "good" English dialogue, so I was sort of staggered reading this.

I also read on other threads here on the forums (mostly related to "gonna") that lots of people appear to dismiss those words as an inappropriate way to speak or to use those within conversations. However, almost all the time I hear people saying words like "gotta", "gonna", "wanna" etc. in everday speech, especially in TV shows or movies that it almost seemed natural to me to use them too in everyday life (with the exception of formal environments like work, letters etc., although I think I recall my boss saying "gonna" here and there too). So, how do you native speakers feel about these kind of words these days? Are these words more accepted nowadays or are they still considered to be mere slang or poor use of the English language?


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## Loob

Hi Dopplereffekt

I think there are two quite separate issues here.

First, _*pronouncing*_ "want to" as "wanna".  I think that many of us do this in informal situations.

Second, *writing* "wanna" instead of "want to".
This is fine when you need, for some reason, to represent an informal pronunciation of "want to": perhaps you're an author who wants to represent a particular accent.  But it's not fine in other circumstances.  In this forum, we would expect you to write "want to" rather than "wanna".


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## Florentia52

Dopplereffekt said:


> However, almost all the time I hear people saying words like "gotta", "gonna", "wanna" etc. in everday speech, especially in TV shows or movies that it almost seemed natural to me to use them too in everyday life (with the exception of formal environments like work, letters etc., although I think I recall my boss saying "gonna" here and there too).



What you hear is people pronouncing "got to" as "gotta," "going to" as "gonna," and "want to" as "wanna." That pronunciation doesn't' make the phrases into new words. When I was in Australia, I heard people saying what sounded like "ey ya gown mite." But that transcription is just an approximation of the sounds I heard; it doesn't mean they said anything other than "How you going, mate?"

Like most people, I pronounce words carelessly at times. Some are slurred together; some consonants nearly disappear. That doesn't change the actual words. "Gotta," "gonna," "wanna," and their ilk are not English words. Whether you choose to imitate informal native pronunciations of "got to," "going to," "want to" is another matter.


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## JulianStuart

Dopplereffekt said:


> Although it's not the same word but I guess it's in the same league of colloquial/ slang words: I recently read _"wanna"_ in a subtitle of a BluRay disc which was rather surprising. It was an episode of star trek the next generation from the 90s. The show itself is known for its use of "good" English dialogue, so I was sort of staggered reading this.



The subtitling companies have a lot to answer for because they simply teach bad English. Necessarily their work is seen in printed/written form only and they are seen by many people learning English.  Those people therefore think it is fine to use the words they see in subtitles, especially if the show has a good reputation.  I have been paying attention to subtitles recently and find many instances of wanna and gonna etc but very few other "phonetic transcriptions" of other colloquial slurring or contractions etc.  I see "What do you think?" in the subtitles when what was actually said was phonetically more like "Wadya think" but they don't put that in the subtitles.  I find no excuse for such inconsistency - either 1) the subtitles reflect all the actual pronunciation, in which case many English speakers might have difficulty if the transcriptions are accurate - and English learners will either be confused, not understand or learn bad English - or 2) they put the correct English into the subtitles, no matter what accents or contractions etc are being used.  The selective use of a few like wanna, gotta and gonna, make it seem more as though these are correct, given the absence of any other indication that phonetics were used in subtitles.

/rant


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## sdgraham

senga89 said:


> which is the correct form? I gonna or I'm gonna? I always use I'm gonna but I also see I gonna and is confusing me.



Neither is correct as you've been told above. It's worthwhile to note, however, that in abusing the English language, there's no correct (or incorrect) way to to inflict such abuse, regardless of the word or expression in question.

The sky's the limit where such abuse is concerned.


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## mplsray

senga89 said:


> hi,
> 
> which is the correct form? I gonna or I'm gonna? I always use I'm gonna but I also see I gonna and is confusing me.
> 
> thank you



To me, "I'm gonna go" is a representation of speech which includes that of educated people, and it would be spelled that way (rather than "I'm going to go") when one especially wanted to precisely represent this pronunciation. This is important especially when writing dialog for a play or screenplay.

I am a speaker of standard American English, and I have certainly said "I'm gonna go" in everyday speech without considering it in any way slang or other nonstandard speech.

"I gonna go," on the other hand, does not represent standard speech to me, but instead belongs to a nonstandard dialect such as African American Vernacular English, where _be_ verbs can be omitted in some circumstances where they are required in standard speech. (Whether there are other nonstandard dialects in which "I gonna go" occurs, I could not say.)


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## Dopplereffekt

Loob, Florentian52, JulianStuart,

thank you for your responses and sorry for the late reply of mine. I am, more than ever now, aware that these "words" are not real and appropriate words regarding a proper utilization of the English language and are merely a lax way of talking. I understand your aversion for those kind of "words" all too well, because here in Germany there are lots words that are not actual words but have found their way into the (everyday) language, however, resulting in becoming real words and eventually being covered even by new editions of dicitionaries after their extensive use throughout society and public life. 
That's where my interest came from, to know whether these type of "words" have as well found their way into the everyday English language and if they face a wider acceptance now (e.g. perhaps becoming more accepted also in formal conditions). Because you hear it almost everywhere, TV-shows, news, movies etc. that it almost feels like those contractions that are so popular in the English language.


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## JamesM

I can't say I've heard "I gonna go".  I've heard "I'm-a go", but that's a particular dialect.  I would expect to hear "Gonna go" with no "I" or "I'm" before I heard "I gonna go".


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## Susan Y

Sorry, Florentia, I disagree with you when you say (in post #10) : _"Gotta," "gonna," "wanna," and their ilk are not English words. _

You obviously don't like them, but they clearly _are_ words, albeit informal; we all know how to spell them, how to pronounce them and what they mean.

I think we are doing English learners a disservice by denying in this forum that they are words, especially since "gonna" is included in all the WR translation dictionaries, along with  a helpful note to explain its usage. For example, from the English-French WR dictionary:

*gonna*

/ˈgɒnə/
WordReference English-French Dictionary © 2014:



*Principal Translations/Principales traductions**gonna* _contraction__informal (going to)_[aller au présent] + [infinitif] _vi__Note_: In writing, "going to" is preferred, though "gonna" is extremely common in speech.Who's gonna pay the bills while you're gone?Qui va payer les factures quand tu seras parti ?



*PS* "Gotta" is in the WR English-only dictionary too:

*gotta*

/ˈgɒtə/

WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2014
*got•ta* _/ˈgɑtə/_ 
*v.* 

This word is used to represent "got to,'' as it is sometimes pronounced in informal, rapid, or regional conversational speech, when it means "have to, must'':We gotta go now (= We have got to go now = We have to/must go now).

Why can't we do the same for "gonna" and "wanna"?


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## JulianStuart

Woddayu mean? I dunno bout all vis talk bout veese new "words" in writing.  Snot what I fink we should do. I hatem  I really could care less. A lot less.


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## sdgraham

Susan Y said:


> Sorry, Florentia, I disagree with you when you say (in post #10) : _"Gotta," "gonna," "wanna," and their ilk are not English words. _



Read it as _standard_ English words. The mere appearance of a word in a dictionary does not validate its use in anything resembling serious writing.

The problem is that we do a disservice to learners by accepting them here and implying that they are acceptable.

Whether you like it or not, those of us who hire people largely based upon their command of written English, simply reject people who insist on writing such stuff.


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## Susan Y

That's why I suggest a note on usage, as in the examples I gave from the WR dictionary. Part of the skill of learning a language -  and using it well -  is understanding the different registers and being able to choose appropriate language for a particular register.


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## JamesM

The WordReference dictionary, as you'll see from your quote, comes from Random House.  You would have to submit a request for a change to Random House itself.

Also, I would say that our general experience here with language learners is that more of them are not aware of "gonna" being a non-standard word than are at a level where they are concerned with register.  They see "gonna" in text messages and online boards all the time.


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## mplsray

I think it is poor practice to say that "X is not a word in English" when one intends the meaning "X is not a standard word in English." Among other things, it is a direct insult to those who use regionalisms and nonstandard terms which are, to the people who speak them, undoubtedly words (and are recognized as such by linguists).

Furthermore, in the case of _gonna_, as I mentioned earlier, it is indeed a word in standard speech, specifically a contraction.


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## sdgraham

mplsray said:


> Furthermore, in the case of _gonna_, as I mentioned earlier, it is indeed a word in standard speech, specifically a contraction.


This poster has been flogging this point of view for some time and is entitled to his opinion.

You will not, however, find "gonna" used any any reputable publication, except perhaps, as a quote or by a columnist (especially a sports columnist), which generally are not subject to ordinary rules of good writing.

Forum members who use "gonna," "wanna" and other such nonstandard English expressions will continue to be corrected by the rest of us, lest learners use them to their future embarrassment.


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## Susan Y

sdgraham said:


> Forum members who use "gonna," "wanna" and other such nonstandard English expressions will continue to be corrected by the rest of us...



Count me out of that, sdg. I am here to help other forum users, not to "correct" them when they use or enquire about perfectly normal (if informal) language.


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## JamesM

mplsray said:


> Furthermore, in the case of _gonna_, as I mentioned earlier, it is indeed a word in standard speech, specifically a contraction.



I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any reference that labels it standard even in speech, mplsray.


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## mplsray

sdgraham said:


> This poster has been flogging this point of view for some time and is entitled to his opinion.
> 
> You will not, however, find "gonna" used any any reputable publication, except perhaps, as a quote or by a columnist (especially a sports columnist), which generally are not subject to ordinary rules of good writing.
> 
> Forum members who use "gonna," "wanna" and other such nonstandard English expressions will continue to be corrected by the rest of us, lest learners use them to their future embarrassment.



Even I cringe when I see a forum member who is learning English as a second language use _gonna_ and _wanna_ in a post, since the use of these spellings in standard prose is usually limited to things like dialog in a play or screenplay and the poster appears not to be using them for such a purpose.

That is, however, a separate question from whether these words are standard in speech. Educated speakers of English use them all the time, except in the most formal levels of speech. It is also a separate question from the status of _wanna_ and _gonna_ as words.

As for _gonna_ being standard, I can quote an authority. Kenneth G. Wilson, in _The Columbia Guide to Standard American English_ does not deal with the matter directly, but it is clear from the following quotes that he considers it to belong to standard speech. (When levels of language are indicated by a capitalized word, this indicates that Wilson defines what he means by this particular term elsewhere in the work.)

From the entry "CASUAL SPEECH":



> _...Borrow your pencil?_ is as likely in Casual as _May I borrow your pencil?_
> As long as such truncations and omissions are limited to situations where Casual speech is appropriate, they are
> Standard.



From the article "ELLIPSIS 2":



> _... Are you going to sneeze?_ is, in Casual use, quite often said as _Gonna sneeze?_


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## MarcB

mplsray said:


> I think it is poor practice to say that "X is not a word in English" when one intends the meaning "X is not a standard word in English." Among other things, it is a direct insult to those who use regionalisms and nonstandard terms which are, to the people who speak them, undoubtedly words (and are recognized as such by linguists).
> Furthermore, in the case of _gonna_, as I mentioned earlier, it is indeed a word in standard speech, specifically a contraction.


I know that informal language is necessary for any learner to fully understand that language. My approach is to clarify when a word or phrase is considered acceptable and when it is not. Just because some native speakers think it is ok is not enough. I notice the same arguments for profanity.Part of the benefit of this forum is that we get various points of view which can help learners.


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## JamesM

mplsray said:


> Even I cringe when I see a forum member who is learning English as a second language use _gonna_ and _wanna_ in a post, since the use of these spellings in standard prose is usually limited to things like dialog in a play or screenplay and the poster appears not to be using them for such a purpose.
> As for _gonna_ being standard, I can quote an authority. Kenneth G. Wilson, in _The Columbia Guide to Standard American English_ does not deal with the matter directly, but it is clear from the following quotes that he considers it to belong to standard speech. (When levels of language are indicated by a capitalized word, this indicates that Wilson defines what he means by this particular term elsewhere in the work.)
> 
> From the entry "CASUAL SPEECH":



Casual speech is often not standard speech.  Just because something is common does not make it standard.  They are two different things.  I say "gonna" all the time but I would not use it in any situation where standard speech was required, such as a training session at work, even to colleagues.  I actually say "I'm going to open this application now by clicking on the icon..." not "I'm gonna open this application..."  They fall into the same category as "'cuz" or "prolly" to me.  I know lots of people who use these on a regular basis (both in speech and in writing) but I wouldn't call them standard English.

As far as I've been able to research them, they are called phonetic erosion or phonological reductions, not contractions.


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## mplsray

JamesM said:


> I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any reference that labels it standard even in speech, mplsray.



Modern dictionaries take it for granted that a usage listed is standard. It is only when it is labelled as "slang," "nonstandard," "regional," or "substandard" that we can know the editors consider a given usage to be nonstandard.

In particular, if the word is labelled "informal," this means that it belongs to standard speech. The US dictionary here and the British dictionary here, from the publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary use the label "informal" while the Webster's New World College Dictionary here says of _gonna _"going to (in informal pronunciation)" and the American Heritage Dictionary on the same Web page uses the label "informal."

Some dictionaries do label it "slang." Others label it as "pronunciation spelling" or something similar and it is not clear to me whether or not that means their editors count it as standard or not. On the general use of "informal" in lexicography and linguistics, however, I am quite confident that it refers to standard speech.


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## JamesM

> Modern dictionaries take it for granted that a usage listed is standard. It is only when it is labelled as "slang," "nonstandard," "regional," or "substandard" that we can know the editors consider a given usage to be nonstandard.  In particular, if the word is labelled "informal," this means that it belongs to standard speech.



I don't believe this is accurate.  Here is what the Oxford English Dictionary (US) has to say about informal English:



> Informal language is mainly used between people who know each other well, or in relaxed and unofficial contexts.  As a rule, it's best to avoid informal vocabulary in most standard written contexts: it wouldn't be a good idea to use it in job applications, for example, or in a report:  Informal language also includes taboo vocabulary, often labeled as vulgar slang in dictionaries or thesauruses. This typically refers to sex or bodily functions and, since many people are likely to find such terms offensive or shocking, they should generally be avoided.



"Standard English" is a term fraught with problems from the beginning.   Formal and Informal are probably better.  In the corporate world, however, using informal English such as "gonna", even in a quick email to a colleague you know well, can raise eyebrows and make people wonder if you know the difference between formal and informal English.


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## Packard

"Gonna" is suitable in writing dialog.  If you were to write my dialog it would be more like "gointo".  I swallow the "g".  I'll have to listen to see if that is typical in the New York region.

Subtitles, the reading of which some foreigners might acquire the English language, are all dialog, so dialog-like spellings are to be expected.


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## JulianStuart

Packard said:


> Subtitles, the reading of which some foreigners might acquire the English language, are all dialog, so dialog-like spellings are to be expected.


Sadly, I agree that is the consequence.  However, the  "This is how it's pronounced by native speakers so we have to capture that in subtitles" argument is, to me, bogus. Subtitles dint used uh do funetic transcriptions.  They oughta do em all that way if they do any.  Woddah ya say? 

I have seen a few subtitle sets where they _do_ try to capture the person's accent (e.g.  an accent from the north of England, in Last Tango in Halifax, I think). An admirable attempt for linguistic purposes, but I frequently had to "translate" words and whole phrases back into _intelligible_ standard English for my US born wife (who is not good interpreting non-US accents; that's why she needs the subtitles in the first place) so she could undersand what was being said.

As for "gonna" it only works as a good representation for some accents but is used to represent every version of the "contraction".  I hear gunna and go-nuh at least as frequently as the one that rhymes with (a non-rhotic) honour.  It clearly needs to be in dictionaries (now, even if not before its rampant appearance in subtitles) so learners can decode the subtitles.  It's a very common informal pronunciation they need to be aware of.  It can be used in writing when needed to represent someone's speech pattern but, in my opinion, should be accompaned by accurate representations of any and all other "informal pronunciations".


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## Keith Bradford

Several points strike me:

1. Written English *never *represents spoken English accurately for more than one word at a time. It is a *code for *spoken English.
2. There are probably millions of variants on spoken English in the world, both dialects and idiolects (personal variations). If anyone were to try to represent these variants accurately it would (a) mean using an extended phonetic alphabet of many dozens of characters - 87 in ipa, plus 49 diacritics and five tones, (b) make alphabetical order impossible and (c) prove incomprehensible for many people who had not heard the original.
3. Therefore we all agree that, within a given dialect, there will be standard spelling. From one dialect to another, the spelling may vary (e.g. _plough/plow_) but if these variants are kept within bounds, mutual comprehension is possible.
4. It is 'wrong' for individuals to make up their own variants. That's not prescriptive, it's predictive: at the very least it will be assumed by others to be impolite or careless, at worst a sign of dyslexia or stupidity. However, *when writing dialogue*, good writers may use phonetic spelling (though noticeably G.B. Shaw could only keep it up for four lines in scene 1 of _Pygmalion_).
5. In other circumstances, people writing English and especially *those learning written English should not *use these forms. Failure to realise this exposes you to the criticisms in paragraph 4.

The world is in continual flux, and contractions like _shan't _and _isn't _were once non-standard, but the principles remain. Unless we all move in the same direction at more or less the same speed, communication becomes impossible.


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## stevepham

I think:

Gonna  = going to (not used in writing, usually used in Speaking).
Going to = formal form of gonna (used a lot in formal writing) .

Hope I could help you a little with this problem


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## Keith Bradford

stevepham said:


> I think:
> 
> Gonna = going to (not used in writing, usually used in Speaking).
> Going to = formal form of gonna (used *always* in formal writing) .
> 
> ...



  (My emphasis.)


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## Packard

When I was in college studying journalism in the late 1960s, before the really heave media coverage of elected officials, we were taught to "clean up" quoted dialog to correct grammar to the greatest extent possible without changing the meaning of the quotation.  I had a "good ear" for dialog and I was frequently graded down for being too accurate in my quotes (showing the politicians, or likely teachers in our case, in a poor light).

Happily the media coverage of officials pretty much ended that practice--George Bush should have been elected in the 1950s and he would have seemed much more intelligent.  

I think local newspapers (very local ones) still clean up grammar for local politicians.  Or the local politicians are far better speakers than the national ones.  For the quotes sound entirely literate in the local rag I get.

I think "gonna", "wanna", "seeya", etc., despite our best efforts here and in schools, will eventually become accepted parts of language.

I heard the word "hassle" first in 1966 when I was a freshman at college.  It apparently had been around for some 15 years by then.  I guess it was a joining of "harrass" and "hustle".  I recall some of my friends doing a skit using "hassle" in an invented advertisement.  We all thought it was very funny.  Of course "hassle" is pretty much accepted as a proper English word in the USA.  I suspect "gonna" and "wanna" will make it too eventually.


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## Parla

It seems to me that a line (which seems to be to have been largely ignored in this discussion, although tangentially grazed, mainly by James) has to be drawn between words and their pronunciation. Those of us who've addressed large groups have likely been careful not only to use words correctly but to pronounce them properly as well; few of us do so in ordinary, informal conversation. 

"Gonna" and "wanna" and the like are not English words; they're slurred pronunciations of English phrases. I may say "How ya doin'?" to the neighbor I encounter on the street, because that's a common sort of greeting around these parts, but I wouldn't suggest it to anyone learning the language. Nor would I suggest that "ya" and "doin'" are in any way "standard" English.

If I'm writing a film script and I want a character to greet people the way one hears greetings in my neighborhood, I'll write "How ya doin'?" in the script, because I'm specifying how I want the character to _sound_. If I'm explaining the greeting for someone who is not a native speaker of English, however, I'll render it as "How're you doing?", because whatever the pronunciation, that's the line in _standard English_. And if the character speaks BE and has a particular accent in which the first word is rendered as "'ow"—again, that's the character's pronunciation; the word is still _how_, not "ow".


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## Wordsmyth

I'm firmly in the same camp as Parla and JS (and others) — mainly because I don't see why _gonna_ and _wanna_ should get special acceptance among the hundreds of other common phonetic erosions. For example, I've yet to find a dictionary that gives definitions of _slate_, _surly_ and _snot _as (respectively) _it's delayed_, _it's ahead of schedule_, and _a retort of disagreement!_ And if dictionaries did include all such cases, trying to learn and use English would be a nightmare, as Keith also pointed out. 


Parla said:


> _[...]_ And if the character speaks BE and has a particular accent in which the first word is rendered as "'ow"—again, that's the character's pronunciation; the word is still _how_, not "ow".


 Well, there is _"Owzat?"_ (though sometimes written as _"Howzat?"_), which isn't considered as slurred speech, but rather as a legitimate word in BrE and in many other cricket-playing countries — it being the spontaneous appeal to a cricket umpire to declare a batsman 'out'. But then cricket is seen by much of the world's population as defying all logical explanation, so I guess the terminology can be considered a justifiable exception. 

Ws


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## Parla

I happily defer to you (and for that matter, just about anyone else) on the subject of the sport of cricket.


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## mplsray

Touching on just some of what has previously been written in this thread, I'd like to mention something I have found in regard to the use of _gonna_ in various registers (levels of speech) and the status of _gonna_ as a word. There is an article called "From Reduction to Conventionalization: Is 'gonna' a word?" by David Lorenz. I have not been able to access it directly, but there is a summary here[1], in which it is said (boldface added):



> The hypothesis is that _gonna_, originally a reduced form of _going to_, by gaining in frequency is also gaining in conceptual independence from the full form.... Several factors are suggested as potential determinants of the choice of form: speaker age, education, region, speech rate, preceding element and modality type. It is shown that speech rate influences the choice of the reduced vs. the full form and younger speakers favour _gonna_ to a greater extent than older speakers. *However, it is also found that gonna is by far the preferred form in all speech registers*, and that the social constraints on the choice of form are diminishing. This points toward the emancipation of _gonna_ a separate word, with some degree of differentiation from _going to_.



Lorenz concludes that this has not yet taken place in written language but that it may in the future. From this summary it appears that Lorenz considers _gonna_ to have already become a separate word in speech.

Lorenz based his study on the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English, which is based upon speech from all areas of the US.

The most important part to me is that _gonna_ is said to be "by far the preferred form in all speech registers." Evidently this would include the speech of speakers of Standard American English, making it a standard usage, as I have asserted before in this thread. It does not, however, agree with my opinion that _gonna_ in writing is already (in certain limited contexts) standard usage.

[1] Corpus Perspectives on Patterns of Lexis, edited by Hilde Hasselgård, Jarle Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell Ebeling


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## Packard

mplsray said:


> Touching on just some of what has previously been written in this thread, I'd like to mention something I have found in regard to the use of _gonna_ in various registers (levels of speech) and the status of _gonna_ as a word. There is an article called "From Reduction to Conventionalization: Is 'gonna' a word?" by David Lorenz. I have not been able to access it directly, but there is a summary here[1], in which it is said (boldface added):
> 
> 
> 
> Lorenz concludes that this has not yet taken place in written language but that it may in the future. From this summary it appears that Lorenz considers _gonna_ to have already become a separate word in speech.
> 
> Lorenz based his study on the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English, which is based upon speech from all areas of the US.
> 
> The most important part to me is that _gonna_ is said to be "by far the preferred form in all speech registers." Evidently this would include the speech of speakers of Standard American English, making it a standard usage, as I have asserted before in this thread. It does not, however, agree with my opinion that _gonna_ in writing is already (in certain limited contexts) standard usage.
> 
> [1] Corpus Perspectives on Patterns of Lexis, edited by Hilde Hasselgård, Jarle Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell Ebeling



But those of us in the New York area who seem to say (like I do) "gone-to", swallowing the "g" but including the "t", will find that "gonna" seems more like "gunner" than "going to".


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## mplsray

Packard said:


> But those of us in the New York area who seem to say (like I do) "gone-to", swallowing the "g" but including the "t", will find that "gonna" seems more like "gunner" than "going to".



As mentioned in the summary, but not included in my post to keep the amount of quotation within forum rules, Lorenz studied other reduced forms of _going to_ other than _gonna_, but his conclusion in connection with registers appears to be limited to that last form. However, what you are discussing is a regional usage rather than a register. Regional usages, of course, can be used in the whole range of registers, and I would be curious if "gone-to" is the preferred form for _going to_ in all registers in your area.


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## JamesM

mplsray said:


> The most important part to me is that _gonna_ is said to be "by far the preferred form in all speech registers." Evidently this would include the speech of speakers of Standard American English, making it a standard usage, as I have asserted before in this thread. It does not, however, agree with my opinion that _gonna_ in writing is already (in certain limited contexts) standard usage.
> 
> [1] Corpus Perspectives on Patterns of Lexis, edited by Hilde Hasselgård, Jarle Ebeling, Signe Oksefjell Ebeling



I'm not so sure about that. I can't seriously imagine a New York socialite saying "gonna".  Nor can I imagine a high-powered attorney using it when in court.  And, as I said before, if I were doing a presentation to the president of my company I certainly wouldn't say "we're gonna implement this $3 million software project in three stages."  When people are in a situation where they are editing and monitoring their speech I think "gonna" tends to disappear from speech.   In casual conversation I agree that it is by far the most common thing you hear.

Bottom line -- that's a sweeping pronouncement and my personal experience doesn't match up with it.


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## Packard

mplsray said:


> As mentioned in the summary, but not included in my post to keep the amount of quotation within forum rules, Lorenz studied other reduced forms of _going to_ other than _gonna_, but his conclusion in connection with registers appears to be limited to that last form. However, what you are discussing is a regional usage rather than a register. Regional usages, of course, can be used in the whole range of registers, and I would be curious if "gone-to" is the preferred form for _going to_ in all registers in your area.



I think swallowing the "g" in words that end with "ing" is very common in our area.  It is so common that I rarely realize that it is going on unless I am concentrating on it specifically.  I certainly think I am saying "going", but when I listen to myself I realize it is "goin'".


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## mplsray

JamesM said:


> I'm not so sure about that. I can't seriously imagine a New York socialite saying "gonna".  Nor can I imagine a high-powered attorney using it when in court.  And, as I said before, if I were doing a presentation to the president of my company I certainly wouldn't say "we're gonna implement this $3 million software project in three stages."  When people are in a situation where they are editing and monitoring their speech I think "gonna" tends to disappear from speech.   In casual conversation I agree that it is by far the most common thing you hear.
> 
> Bottom line -- that's a sweeping pronouncement and my personal experience doesn't match up with it.



I mentioned the detail that the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English is based upon speech from all parts of the United States because I did not want it to be taken to be a corpus of California regional speech. What I did not mention, and now see that I should have, was that (boldface added) it is "based on over a 1000 recordings of *spontaneous speech* from all over the United States."[1]

So Lorenz's statement about register would not have covered instances where a speaker was giving a prepared speech.

From my point of view, it is sufficient that standard speakers habitually use a given usage in speech for it to constitute standard usage. This is explicitly the viewpoint of Kenneth G. Wilson, and the editors of Webster's Dictionary of English Usage clearly see standard speech in the same way.[2] The idea is not a new one. The furthest I have been able to trace it back is to linguist George Philip Krapp in his_ The Pronunciation of Standard English in America_ (in which he called it "standard colloquial").


[1] From Variational Pragmatics: A Focus on Regional Varieties in Pluricentric Languages, edited by Klaus Peter Schneider, Anne Barron.

[2] If my memory serves, John H. McWhorter also expresses this viewpoint in his book "The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language."


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## Wordsmyth

mplsray said:


> _[...]_ From this summary it appears that Lorenz considers _gonna_ to have already become a separate word in speech. _[...]_
> ... my opinion that _gonna_ in writing is already (in certain limited contexts) standard usage. _[...] _


 If it is a standard word in its own right (rather than a contraction, where reference can be made to the full original form), I would expect teachers of English to be able to tell learners what part of speech it is. Without such information, a learner may have great difficulty in constructing different sentences. 

So what part of speech is it, and what's the associated syntax? The nearest I can get is something like: 'A pseudo-modal auxiliary verb which (unlike true modals) is used in combination with the present tense of the verb _to be_, thus forming a verbal phrase that has the characteristics of the present continuous tense, in which _"gonna"_ acts as an irregular present participle. However, unlike other verbs used in this way (which are followed by a to-infinitive), _"gonna"_ is followed by a bare infinitive.'  .... Ummm, no thanks! 

Until such a description can be found published in language reference sources, I can't see that it can be considered a standard word. At present its status is (depending on individual tolerance level) either a lazy-speech representation of "going to" or, at most , a recognised contraction of "going to'. In either case, it isn't dissociated from the standard form, "going to".


mplsray said:


> _ [...]_ From my point of view, it is sufficient that standard speakers habitually use a given usage in speech for it to constitute standard usage. _[...]_


 But there's a big difference between a common spoken form ("a standard" if you must, but not necessarily "standard") on the one hand, and acceptance as an established word on the other. If you equated the two, then Florentia's example ...


Florentia52 said:


> _[...] _That pronunciation doesn't make the phrases into new words. When I was in Australia, I heard people saying what sounded like "ey ya gown mite." But that transcription is just an approximation of the sounds I heard; it doesn't mean they said anything other than "How you going, mate?"


 ... would mean that the word "ey" should be a recognised alternative to "how", and similarly "ya", "gown" and "mite" would be alternatives to "you", "going" and "mate" respectively. It could be argued that that's not the same issue, because it's an AmE speaker's interpretation of an AuE accent — but then it's a similar situation with "gonna". Packard and others have noted that "gonna" is not the pronunciation of the contraction in all regions of the US. In the UK, "gonna" certainly isn't standard: the contraction is almost always [gənə], which a non-rhotic speaker might be tempted to write as "gerner".

And I wonder what Lorenz might have to say about "goin". It may well be more frequent than "going" in spoken English. So does that make it a word? Given the tendency for written forms to drive pronunciation, perhaps it should be pronounced to rhyme with "coin"! If "goin" isn't considered a standard written word, then why should "gonna" be?

Ws


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## mplsray

As a result of serendipity (while looking for "gonna in British English") I managed to find much of Lorenz's article in Google Books here (inside one of the books I cited previously).


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## Packard

This discussion has been moved from: less extreme conditions?
where it was off-topic. 
Cagey, moderator. 



cyberpedant said:


> Your sentence looks well-written to me.



I agree.  Except for the use of "wanna" in place of "want to". 

Why is it I see "wanna" so often, but "gonna" less often?  Both offend my sense of good language.


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## cyberpedant

I believe these solecisms are propagated in large part in English subtitles (TV captions) which try to describe the actual speech of the actors. Almost everyone (dare I delete "almost"?) uses those forms in speech.


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## JulianStuart

Packard said:


> I agree.  Except for the use of "wanna" in place of "want to".
> 
> Why is it I see "wanna" so often, but "gonna" less often?  Both offend my sense of good language.


I gotta agree with that - I blame the subtitle writers. They single out these few phonetic transcriptions (got to, want to, going to) but faithfully write many others correctly regardless of how they are (mis)pronounced...
(Cross posted)


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## pob14

JulianStuart said:


> I gotta agree with that


 Shyeah.  'F I wasta rite da way I tawk, ya wouldn' unnerstan' me adall.


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## JulianStuart

pob14 said:


> Shyeah.  'F I wasta rite da way I tawk, ya wouldn' unnerstan' me adall.


Gotcha.

Here's a variant for my point.
Phonetic approximation of sound:
'F I's gonna rite da way I tawk, ya wouldn' unnerstan' me adall.
Subtitle rendition:
If I was gonna write the way I talk, you wouldn't understand me at all.
Everything _else_ gets "fixed" except gonna, wanna and gotta


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## pob14

JulianStuart said:


> Gotcha.
> 
> Here's a variant for my point.
> Phonetic approximation of sound:
> 'F I's gonna rite da way I tawk, ya wouldn' unnerstan' me adall.
> Subtitle rendition:
> If I was gonna write the way I talk, you wouldn't understand me at all.
> Everything _else_ gets "fixed" except gonna, wanna and gotta


Exactly.  It mystifies me as well; why this far and no farther?


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## Packard

JulianStuart said:


> I gotta agree with that - I blame the subtitle writers. They single out these few phonetic transcriptions (got to, want to, going to) but faithfully write many others correctly regardless of how they are (mis)pronounced...
> (Cross posted)



If people are learning English by watching TV, imagine if they learned to drive by watching Fast & Furious, or even better by watching Bullitt with Steve McQueen. 

They would not only be skilled linguists but also be expert high speed race car drivers.


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