[Zenst]

You may very well be right. I use it without thinking and with that I suppose it is a form of slang variation in usage. Though my grammer and spelling are below par and I do find my native English language a fun feild of rules with so many exceptions that if it was code it would be the worst code ever. That and even today we still do not have a definitive grammer/spell checker that can understand all context and usage. Yet we can put a man on the moon and develop advanced AI that gets better every day.

Though I'm starting too feel that you may be right in how this permutation of words originated, given language accents and localisations pre internet days.

[troels]

Thanks. If you also use it in speech, then it strongly suggests that it's simply because would've sounds similar to would of. To humour me, would you mind saying where you're from?

[Zenst]

England, East Anglia