Debate record of House of Commons

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dawnngcm

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Does the English of debate records of House of Commons must grammatically correct and natural?
 
We don't use "must" after "does".

Does the English of debate records of
the House of Commons have to be grammatically correct and natural?


To answer your question, that would be ideal. But with oral debate, that would be unlikely.
 
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Then, I suppose the statements drafted by committee members who read in The House of Commons is grammatically correct and natural. Am I right?

 
I would hope so, but let's wait for one of our British members to comment.
 
***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Dawnngcm, here is a true story.

This week I was watching on American television a "live" session of Prime Minister's Questions (when Mr. Cameron, the prime minister, stands up in the Commons and answers questions from other members).

In referring to another member, he accidentally used a word that didn't seem to make sense. The members roared with laughter. The speaker (the member who keeps order) told the House that they understood what Mr. Cameron meant. The prime minister then smiled and used the correct word that he had originally intended to use.

As you know, the proceeedings of the House are printed. I think that we can assume that only the correct word appeared in the official record.

P.S. You have actually asked a very insightful question. Here in the United States, sometimes when a famous person makes a grammatical mistake, the official record (and newspapers) will change it to correct English so as not to embarrass that person.
 
Possibly, but do they also edit all of the grammar?
 
The official report of the daily proceedings in the House of Commons and the House of Lords is called 'Hansard'.

It appears to be an edited report rather than a verbatim one.

Nobody I know is interested enough to bother reading it.
 
Nobody I know is interested enough to bother reading it.
Ha! Ha! I am the one. :lol:
Because that record discuss the place where I live.
I am delight to learn something more when I read it.
 
You live in Hong Kong, according to your profile.
 
I'm not sure that's the word I'd use for it! I had a read through and it was hard to tell if it had been edited or if all the people involved happened to speak in remarkably grammatical sentences that day. However, although I realise Wikipedia is not infallible, I found this:



"Hansard is not a word-for-word transcript of debates in Parliament. Its terms of reference are those set by a House of Commons Select Committee in 1893, as being a report
...which, though not strictly verbatim, is substantially the verbatim report with repetitions and redundancies omitted and with obvious mistakes (including grammatical mistakes) corrected, but which, on the other hand, leaves out nothing that adds to the meaning of the speech or illustrates the argument.[SUP]"



The full Wikipedia article can be found here. [/SUP]
 
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