[Grammar] Have the Americans a clue too?

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Hucky

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Hi,

This is a question addressed to the speakers of American English within the context of my thread entitled Have you a clue? (Have you got.../Do you ...?).

There I asked the British speakers about the usage of the main verb have in questions and negatives as follows:
Have you a brother? I haven´t a brother.

I wonder if you have ever in any regional or social variety (dialect/sociolect) of American English heard American native speakers couching questions or negatives according to the above pattern.

I should very much appreciate your experience.

Hucky
 

billmcd

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Hi,

This is a question addressed to the speakers of American English within the context of my thread entitled Have you a clue? (Have you got.../Do you ...?).

There I asked the British speakers about the usage of the main verb have in questions and negatives as follows:
Have you a brother? I haven´t a brother.

I wonder if you have ever in any regional or social variety (dialect/sociolect) of American English heard American native speakers couching questions or negatives according to the above pattern.

I should very much appreciate your experience.

Hucky

I think you would hear the majority of AmE speakers ask "Do you have a brother?" and "No, I don't" or " No, I don't have a brother".
 

probus

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I think the more common form by far in AmE is "do you have any" plural rather than "do you have a" singular.
 

Hucky

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Dear billmcd and dear probus,

First of all, best thanks!

May I conclude from what you have written that there do exist patterns of asking a question like 1) have you got any ...? and 2) have you any ...? in AEalthough they represent by far the minority of speakers compared with do you have any...? Well,I knew that this is to some extent trueof the got version (no. 1), but can you really encounter native American speakers who use the construction under no. 2?I´m really curious to see what you will say.

Hucky
 

billmcd

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Dear billmcd and dear probus,

First of all, best thanks!

May I conclude from what you have written that there do exist patterns of asking a question like 1) have you got any ...? and 2) have you any ...? in AEalthough they represent by far the minority of speakers compared with do you have any...? Well,I knew that this is to some extent trueof the got version (no. 1), but can you really encounter native American speakers who use the construction under no. 2?I´m really curious to see what you will say.

Hucky

In direct response to your question about construction #2, not many.
 

probus

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I think have you got any... and do you have any... areabout equally common, and agree with billmcd that have you any... is pretty rare.
 

billmcd

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I think the more common form by far in AmE is "do you have any" plural rather than "do you have a" singular.

Well, it depends entirely on context and whether the questioner wants to determine if the person has one brother or more than one brother. My response to Hucky was based on his reference to one brother.
 

Hucky

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Dear billmcd and dear probus,

Your responses have been quite interesting to me. I was not surprised to hear that the have you-form is very rare, but that the do you have-version and the have you got-version are almost equally common in the US. I would have expected the former to be much more in use. Well, we live and learn. But what tinge do the have you-speakers have? Are they considered illiterates without any command of grammar? Or is their peculiarity just as accepted as the other two variants?

Hucky
 

probus

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Dear billmcd and dear probus,

But what tinge do the have you-speakers have? Are they considered illiterates without any command of grammar? Or is their peculiarity just as accepted as the other two variants?

Hucky

Certainly they are not illiterate or ignorant of grammar. Both "have you a brother?" and "have you any brothers?" are grammatically correct. They are just much less used over here.

To my ear, a person using the have you form might be suspected of being a foreigner, or possibly snobbish or pedantic. That is, of course when the question is whether a person possesses something.

"Have you ever tried sushi?" and "Have you visited Switzerland?" are normal and commonplace.
 

Hucky

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Dear probus,

Now the whole matter is getting more and more interesting. Would you suspect that someone using the have you-form is British or someone who is at least influenced by the British vernacular? Could that because of its Britishness perhaps be the reason why you perceive it to be snobbish or pedantic? Do Americans in general tend to consider the British in linguistic terms to be less lax? And what about the New England states, haven´t they preserved a lot of typical British traits as e.g. the have you-form (I don´t mean as in in the present perfect)?

Greetings

Hucky
 

probus

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Dear probus,

Now the whole matter is getting more and more interesting. Would you suspect that someone using the have you-form is British or someone who is at least influenced by the British vernacular? Could that because of its Britishness perhaps be the reason why you perceive it to be snobbish or pedantic? Do Americans in general tend to consider the British in linguistic terms to be less lax? And what about the New England states, haven´t they preserved a lot of typical British traits as e.g. the have you-form (I don´t mean as in in the present perfect)?

Hi Hucky:

I have spent three years in London, and my opinion is that although "have you..." is perhaps heard more there than in North America, it is still less common than the other two forms. When I said "a foreigner", I was thinking of someone who has become rather fluent but is not fully conversant with the most used phrases.

I think there are a few people on this side of the pond who think that some varieties of BrE are superior to AmE, so that was where the snobbish came from. And if one looks at the three forms logically, the got is quite unnecessary, and "do you have" is three words versus only two for "have you." So I thought some pedant might consider "have you" the most elegant of the three.

As to New England and what Americans in general think, I'm sorry but you are dragging me beyond my depth.:-D

Probus
 

billmcd

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Dear probus,

Now the whole matter is getting more and more interesting. Would you suspect that someone using the have you-form is British or someone who is at least influenced by the British vernacular? Could that because of its Britishness perhaps be the reason why you perceive it to be snobbish or pedantic? Do Americans in general tend to consider the British in linguistic terms to be less lax? And what about the New England states, haven´t they preserved a lot of typical British traits as e.g. the have you-form (I don´t mean as in in the present perfect)?

Greetings

Hucky

In the following response I speak solely for myself and it may or may not represent the majority of AmE speakers. First, I would suspect that someone using the "have you form" is British or learned the language in Great Britain but I would also consider accent in my evaluation. But I'm not sure how someone would be "influenced by the British vernacular". Give me some examples. I consider it neither snobbish nor pedantic. Second, with regard to considering the British to be less lax, I think you must understand that our (AmE) English is based upon BrE and unfortunately, I am not so proud of what, in some cases, it (AmE) has become and is becoming. But unfortunately also, as the saying goes "popular usage rules". I suspect that this is true in any language.

With regard to New Englanders. Having spent three years in Massachusetts, the only noticeable trait for me was the accent, and I wouldn't call it BrE. The usual example, "park the car in Boston Yard" becomes "pack the cah in Baston Yad"
 
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Vidor

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not a teacher

Never in my life have I heard an American use the "Have you" construction. As for what is snobbish, I do agree that an American using British constructions is engaging in a rather silly attempt to sound sophisticated. I remember a coworker once saying that the "queue" to the bathroom was too long. Ridiculous.

That said, I do like "gobsmacked".
 

Tdol

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Re: not a teacher

I feel the same when I hear restroom used in the UK. ;-)
 

Tdol

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It depends how you're defining Britishness- have you a may sound like Brideshead Revisisted English to some, but that's only reflective of a small number of BrE speakers nowadays, and BrE is changing at a great pace. AmE speakers may find the opposite on many things- BrE is more 'lax' in many ways. Over the years in many discussion, I have come across may AmE speakers expressing surprise at what we're using. ;-)
 
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