Tuesday, February 11, 2014

grammaticality - Is "I just spent all my money" grammatically incorrect?




Lyircs of Free by Natalia Kills:




I'm free



I just spent all my money




but I rocked that like it don't cost a thing




Shouldn't it be "I've just spent all my money"? As far as I remember, our English told us to use Present Prefect in such case because of the just.


Answer



American English tends to use the past tense in places where British English uses the present perfect construction, and this may be one such place. But in any case, the lyrics of popular music are not always written in Standard English and will consequently conform to a different set of grammatical rules.


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