could of/would of in reported speech

[Brahbrah]

I've noticed could of/would of in a couple of books I've read recently, but as it was part of dialogue I haven't been able to decide whether to be outraged or not . The characters surely mean could've/would've but many people clearly say could of/would of. Does this make it ok?

I imagine if I were writing the book I might well have the characters saying "could of", if that's the kind of thing they would say. You can't really have someone saying "could have" when they wouldn't naturally do that, any more than you could have them saying "he knows nothing" when they would actually say "he don't know nuffink".

IMHO.

What annoys me is when an author (yes, Elizabeth George, I'm talking about you) simply uses it as lazy shorthand for 'this is my intellectually challenged/ working class/country bumpkin/criminal character who I can't be arsed to develop in any 3-dimensional way'.

I wouldn't expect them to say could have but could've and could of sound pretty similar, which is where the confusion has come from in the first place, so why not print it as could've instead of could of? It's not really an accent/dialect thing. It always makes me double take, which stops the flow of the book.

I personally would write "could've" if I was writing "could have" in the way someone would say it.

"could of" is an extrapolation of writing down how "coud've" is said.
ie: people who don't know how to spell it/write it, would write "could of" even though they've actually said "could've"

Authors should put a disclaimer at the front of the books making it clear that they've used 'could of' because that's how the character speaks, not because the author/editors/proofreader don't know any better! although I'm an editor/proofreader and I come across some shockers that have been edited by people who clearly shouldn't be doing the job