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1 Post By bhaisahab -
1 Post By BobK
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You may eat any clean bird, ___________?
You may eat any clean bird, ___________?
What kind of question tag goes into the above blank?
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Re: You may eat any clean bird, ___________?

Originally Posted by
sitifan
You may eat any clean bird, __mayn't you_________?
What kind of question tag goes into the above blank?
.
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Re: You may eat any clean bird, ___________?

Originally Posted by
whitemoon
.
mayn't you?
not a teacher
Last edited by moniza; 26-Nov-2008 at 07:22.
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Re: You may eat any clean bird, ___________?
It is a contraction, as I'm sure you will have guessed, of 'may you not' and is correct English, if a bit archaic.
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Re: You may eat any clean bird, ___________?

Originally Posted by
moniza
mayn't you?
it's strange, never heard.
not a teacher
This kind of question tag is called "positive statement with negative tag".
You may eat any clean bird. (positive statement) Therefore we use negative tag and we have to add "not" in 'MAY EAT'.
You may eat any clean bird, may not you? (wrong)
In question tag, we must use short form(contraction). Therefore we must use:
You may eat any clean bird, mayn't you?
Hope you understand very well.
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Re: You may eat any clean bird, ___________?

Originally Posted by
bhaisahab
It is a contraction, as I'm sure you will have guessed, of 'may you not' and is correct English, if a bit archaic.
- especially the last phrase! I hear 'mayn't you' rarely, and 'may you not' only in stiffly correct language - say an old teacher saying 'we may see... may we not, Binns Minor?', asking for attention by making an example of one of the class.
Most users would reword the whole sentence, so that they could use some other modal in the tag question - 'can't we?' or 'couldn't I?' for example.
b
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