Why would someone say "I seen" instead of I saw?

Question

I don't even understand how they can say that without it being a joke!

Answer 1

Ugh! Improper English (to me) is like nails on a chalkboard. I don't know why people insist on using incorrect subject/verb agreement. That's basic. It's taught in elementary school!

Answer 2

You are correct that it is not standard English. But it is not simply a matter of ignorance either. If you look at its history, and how we treat parallel forms, you can see how it happened.

"I seen" is an old dialectal variant, just as logical an irregular past tense (perhaps even more so!) as "saw" when you analyze it. It just happens that "saw" was the form the "won out" in the dominant dialects of the language, but "seen" has not been completely overthrown.

Note the following discussion:

"What’s going on is clearly not ignorance, laziness or poor schooling. The pattern of present, past and perfect of see, seen and seen in place of see, saw and seen reveals that speakers don’t put irregular verbs together just by combining a stem and a suffix, the way they form many thousands of English regular verbs. Among the roughly 180 ‘approved’ irregular verbs now listed in grammars of American English, there is no verb with an -en suffix in the past as well as the perfect form.

"So where does I seen it come from? It follows a more general pattern implicit in all the regular verbs and in many irregular ones as well. All of the regular verbs, such as need, needed,, and about 75 of the irregular ones, such as lead, led, led, have the same form in the past and present perfect, but a different form in the present. The see, seen, seen formation fits this more inclusive pattern, which can be stated as present differs from past and perfect; the past is like the perfect minus 'have.' "

http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/correct/gatekeeping/

Answer 3

'saw' is simple past denoting to a past event, used when something past is said.

'seen' alone is wrong. There are three possibilities for this 'seem':
1] They mean 'have/has seen' but the 'have or has' is increasingly unstressed.
2] People, nowadays, tend to simplify every thing, including languages.
[4 = for, and such things]
3] They don't know the rules.

Answer 4

For native speakers, at times they just want to be cute (like imitating slave-talk of old). It's just word play for those who understand it and rarely for some (mostly kids) it's just wrong grammar.

I have friends who try to deviate from the same-old routine by saying, "How's you day?" , "How is you there?" or "How is thou?"

Mostly, they is playin'. ^_^

Answer 5

Lack of proper education, and as we grow up we emulate the speech of those people we associate ourselves with.

Answer 6

Not everyone learns proper English.

Answer 7

I know. I seen that often here...= ) JK

I guess they can't take the time to say "I've seen" or "I have seen."

Keep trying to educate them though.

Answer 8

People learn from their families and friends. How about "I want to axe you a question? Or, "I want to buy a scream door and put it on credick."

Answer 9

Because they are an AmeriKan and AmeriKans don't know how to use or conjugate verbs.

Answer 10

Because they never learned better or maybe they want someonw to think they are a hillbilly.