- Joined
- Jul 28, 2009
- Member Type
- English Teacher
- Native Language
- British English
- Home Country
- UK
- Current Location
- UK
I do trust your opinions but I feel need for asking because It is logically convincing and here is a very good sentence that proves the rightness of my opinion:
How can we tag this sentence "Most of us/you died in an accident"? In my viewpoint, I'd use "didn't they" because I am talking about people who are surly not present while I am saying this so we can't include them as ones of the speakers nor listeners. Remember: if you used "we/you" in the tag, you include the dead as if they were present because "we and you" are inclusive in the tag.
What do you think now?
There is no context in which "Most of you died in the accident ..." would be used. We only use "you" if we are addressing the people to whom "you" refers. If those people are dead, then of course they are not standing in front of you.
If, for example, there were a group of 100 people, 75 of whom had recently died when the group was together, and you were addressing the remaining 25 people, you might say "Many of the group died, as you know. You're the lucky ones. Only a quarter of you survived, didn't you?"
You are still fairly new to the forum so you are still learning how it works. The general idea is that you ask a question to which you do not know the answer and you ask native speakers and teachers to tell you the answer (preferably after you suggest what you think the answer might be and why). As Piscean said, after a number of native speakers, teachers and long-term users have told you the answer, don't you think the chances are that they are right? Constantly meeting our answers with "Well, I respect your opinion but here's mine" and then giving yet another incorrect understanding of the situation helps no one. It just leads to long and confusing threads.