[General] have a colour/be a colour

[trndsttr]

Hi, I saw the sentence "They're a horrible colour."
Doesn't this sentence have to be "They have a horrible colour." ?

 

[GoesStation]

Hi, and welcome to the forum. :hi:

The sentence is correct as written. We don't say that something has a color, so that version would be wrong.

 

[Rover_KE]

trndsttr, you may or may not be aware that there are some frequently encountered spelling differences between words in British English and American English– for example, BE colour = AE color.

In future threads, please tell us the source and author of any text you quote.

 

[emsr2d2]

Hi.
I saw the following sentence:

"They're a horrible colour."

[STRIKE]Doesn't[/STRIKE] Shouldn't this sentence [STRIKE]have to[/STRIKE] be "They have a horrible colour no full stop here"?

Welcome to the forum. :hi:

Please note my changes above.

You must end every sentence with an appropriate punctuation mark, even a sentence as short as "Hi". In future, though, you don't need to include a greeting in your posts. Just go straight ahead with your question.
As Rover said, you must provide the source and author of anything you quote on the forum, so that information is missing after "I saw the following sentence".
When you quote a full sentence inside a question, don't use the closing punctuation mark of the quoted sentence. The question mark at the end of the sentence serves as the closing punctuation.

 

[Tdol]

Doesn't this sentence have to be "They have a horrible colour." ?

No.

 

[trndsttr]

"When you quote a full sentence inside a question, don't use the closing punctuation mark of the quoted sentence. The question mark at the end of the sentence serves as the closing punctuation." Does this apply to all punctuation marks?

 

[emsr2d2]

"When you quote a full sentence inside a question, don't use the closing punctuation mark of the quoted sentence. The question mark at the end of the sentence serves as the closing punctuation." Does this apply to all punctuation marks?

Sorry. I should have made it clear that that applies specifically to full stops.

Can I say "This dog is mine."? :cross:
Can I say "This dog is mine"? :tick:

Exclamation marks and question marks should be included.

Can I say "I don't believe it!"? :tick:
Can I say "What's your name?"? :tick:

 

[jutfrank]

No, only to full stops, not question marks or exclamation marks.

[cross-posted]