I think that errors creep in when one strays out of one's dialect(s) or socialect(s). It can be from dialect to standard if the speaker is less sure of him/herself when using the standard or the other way round. It's not as if dialects don't have their own rules: you don't make up the grammar of a dialect as you go along. At least I don't think so. Do dialects have erratic grammar?
Of course there are loads of people who are comfy in more than one 'lect.
If yer man had reallly said what he didn't say then he might have been a comfortable dialect speaker messing up an attempt to "talk proper" but also a more standard speaker failing to sound convincingly folksy.
I've been prouder of our troops today than I've ever been
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That's the thing though. People would probably think "Here's a bumpkin who can't talk proper", but we are just talking about tenses, not an attempt to sound high class. Dialect speakers need tenses too.
(And thinking about it I'm pretty sure he mucked up, because it really only makes sense to say that sentence if you are comparing one review of some troops to other reviews, and that wouldn't be very motivational for the troops in Korea, I suppose)
As for dialect, linguists always treat the standard and the non-standard as much the same, but couldn't the very lack of standardization in the non-standard make a big difference? People these days are usually exposed to all kinds of influences and variation from many localities, and they are unlikely to be able to describe the features of their own dialect, or how it varies from the national standard. They may even think of it as only being "bad English" themselves. A dialect speaker may have a range of constructions at his/her disposal that will not be criticized by other speakers, perhaps? A modern dialect speaker lives in a mixed, messy, more liberal environment, not simply a world with two poles, and thus is less likely to produce accurate standard English when necessary?
(And thinking about it I'm pretty sure he mucked up, because it really only makes sense to say that sentence if you are comparing one review of some troops to other reviews, and that wouldn't be very motivational for the troops in Korea, I suppose)
As for dialect, linguists always treat the standard and the non-standard as much the same, but couldn't the very lack of standardization in the non-standard make a big difference? People these days are usually exposed to all kinds of influences and variation from many localities, and they are unlikely to be able to describe the features of their own dialect, or how it varies from the national standard. They may even think of it as only being "bad English" themselves. A dialect speaker may have a range of constructions at his/her disposal that will not be criticized by other speakers, perhaps? A modern dialect speaker lives in a mixed, messy, more liberal environment, not simply a world with two poles, and thus is less likely to produce accurate standard English when necessary?