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I have this soundbyte from a video. All I'm hearing is 'I was flipped if' but it doesn't sound grammatically correct to me. Moreover a search on google for "i was flipped if" between quotes returned only 2 results.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l2akckyqtyn1a5p/flipped.wma?dl=0

Shouldn't that have been something like 'I would have flipped'? But it's definitely not what I'm hearing.

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  • I'm not sure of the video's context, but if the speaker is in a position that does not allow swearing, she may have invented her own curse word as a substitute. For example, I'm a high school teacher and I have to watch my language at school. If I get frustrated, I usually say something ridiculous like, "Oh, pickles," with the same tone and inflection as I would swear. Anyone hearing it has no doubt that I'm unhappy, but I avoid getting myself into trouble.
    – Jason Patterson
    Commented Nov 2, 2015 at 1:12

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It is indeed "I was flipped". Used like this, inflection are enough to figure out what she means - she would've been disappointed. This is not common usage and I would not recommend saying something like this but it is understandable.

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  • Thank you! If I were to transcribe the entire conversation (so losing inflection in the tone etc) do you think I could leave it as it is or I'd better change it to 'I would've flipped'? It's for an informal audience.
    – Barbara
    Commented Nov 2, 2015 at 7:40
  • For an informal audience, it would probably be fine, but in terms of generally accepted practices in English, when you change what is said for clarity you place what you changed in brackets ("I [would've] flipped"), but this is usually used when the use of a quotation leaves out something or changes grammatical structure. In terms of the actual quotation, I think the context, even if written, can adequately convey what she means, but changing it is up to you.
    – fireeeeeeeee
    Commented Nov 3, 2015 at 18:30

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