[Grammar] Saw you him? - What sort of English would it be

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shatilof

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My question is aimed specifically at English native speakers.

If you hear/read this question - Saw you him? - what would be your reaction? Mistake? Very old fashioned? Barbarian?

And would your perception differ whether you actually read it or just hear it?

Thank you in advance.
 
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Perhaps you know that a native speaker would most likely say, "Did you see him?"

"You saw him?" "Was it him you saw?" "Was he the one you saw?" are other possibilities.

"Saw you him?" would be very old fashioned and/or a poor translation from another language where word order is different than in English.
 

shatilof

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Great that you mentioned "very old fashioned" as this question is actually from Romeo and Juliet
 

Barb_D

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Great that you mentioned "very old fashioned" as this question is actually from Romeo and Juliet
It would be so VERY useful if people asking questions would give the source and/or context of their questions.

Our default assumptions are that the person posting wants modern and natural phrasing.
 

emsr2d2

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I'm intrigued to know what, if anything, someone would consider to be "barbarian" English!
 

Barb_D

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Me Tarzan, you Jane!
?
 

shatilof

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Sorry for being a bit misleading, but the whole point is/was to ask for an "at first sight" opinion. I am just trying to understand why English has besome so consruction based and, well, stiff to some extent, when about 450 years ago it seemed as flexible as Russian, for example.
 

emsr2d2

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I would say that, to our modern ear, old English sounds stilted and stiff.

Saw you him?
Ate you dinner?
Canst thou not see it, my liege?

There was little scope for "chatty" English and frequently there was only one way to say something.
 

shatilof

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I would say that, to our modern ear, old English sounds stilted and stiff.

Saw you him?
Ate you dinner?
Canst thou not see it, my liege?

There was little scope for "chatty" English and frequently there was only one way to say something.

Sure, but the Shakespearian English did seem to have everything the modren version has including auxiliaries - Do you bite your thumb at us, sir? - plus what I call flexibility meaning lack of need to use every grammar rule ;-)
 

bhaisahab

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I rather like "Canst thou not see it?". It sounds quite poetic to me when compared with "Can't you see it?".
 

MikeNewYork

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There were very few rules in Shakespeare's time. That includes spelling. He spelled his own name different ways. That is not an ideal we should hope to achieve.
 

emsr2d2

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I rather like "Canst thou not see it?". It sounds quite poetic to me when compared with "Can't you see it?".

I partly "borrowed" that from a cartoon postcard we used to have on the fridge when I was growing up. I think it was by Raymond (?) Baxter. There were two men in Elizabethan clothing, standing on a high wall, one of them pointing into the distance and saying "Canst thou not see it, my liege? 'Tis but three blocks north of the delicatessen". It always tickled me and it gets thrown into conversations with my parents alarmingly frequently.
 
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