Question tag — one of us failed the exam...

[man of manners]

Hi!
This is a new thread in which we will discuss some problematic sentences that need suitable question tags.
The sentence is:

One of us failed the exam, ..............?

Thanks in advance!

 

[emsr2d2]

Please tell us what you think first, particularly taking into account what we told you in a previous thread about the question tag which follows a statement involving "us".

 

[man of manners]

I think this sentence is different because it refers to one person not a group.
I think the question tag is "didn't he?" if the person referred to is a male or "didn't she?" if the person referred to is a female or "didn't they?" if we don't know whether the person referred to is a male or a female.

 

[GoesStation]

The only natural question tag would be "right?" An attempt to come up with another appropriate tag would leave the speaker tongue-tied, struggling to find the right pronoun.

 

[man of manners]

What about this sentence "[FONT=&quot]One of you/them/the boys/the girls."? Does the same apply to it?[/FONT]

 

[Tdol]

I'd use didn't we, as it refers to us. One does not exclude us, just restricts it.

 

[man of manners]

I'd use didn't we, as it refers to us. One does not exclude us, just restricts it.

I think this is not logical as when we say, "One of us" we mean a single person not a group and if you write the full question tag, you will see this:
One of us played well, didn't s/he play well? (sounds logical)
---------------------------------------------------
A: One of us played well, didn't we play well? (sounds illogical)
B: No, only one of us, not all of us.

 

[man of manners]

That's why I guess we should not use "we" in the tag as the meaning differs greatly. I mean if I were to use a question tag for this sentence, I would never use "we" because the meaning will differ.

 

[man of manners]

In these very artificial sentences that you are posting, some people will say one thing, some another.

Aren't the sentences I post grammatically correct? I know there are hardly any question tags to them, but I ask to know if a person were to use a question tag, what should they say?

 

[GoesStation]

Aren't the sentences I post grammatically correct? I know there are hardly any question tags to them, but I ask to know if a person were to use a question tag, what should they say?

They are grammatically correct. That makes them no less artificial.

You might be better served by finding potential samples in texts you can find on line. Please don't ask about obsolete vocabulary.

 

[man of manners]

You might be better served by finding potential samples in texts you can find on line.

I remember that Piscean told me that finding written sentences cannot ensure/guarantee its grammatical correctness. But I told him that this depends only on the class of the people who wrote these sentences.

Please don't ask about obsolete vocabulary.

I did not in this thread and I will not do this in any coming ones.

 

[Tdol]

A: One of us played well, didn't we play well? (sounds illogical)

The question tag would probably only be didn't we, and it wouldn't sound so illogical if the team leader were looking at the team dynamics and how one person, unnamed but known, met the standards expected, while everyone else let the coach down. Context is important. It's an unusual question, and would require some sort of context. Looking at something that requires a context devoid of context does not point to the correct answer. You might want to notice that this question is about one success in a sea of failure, which is the opposite of the original sentence, and so can only cast a dim light on its meaning.

 

[man of manners]

You might want to notice that this question is about one success in a sea of failure, which is the opposite of the original sentence

This is what I mean by posting this sentence from the beginning. There is also one more possibility that one of us did play well but the others did not play at all.The question is: How can we use "we" while the sentence means that only one of us played well, not all of us? In other words, "we" when mentioned without any partitives or modifiers as in the question tag, it is understood to be inclusive. while, in this sentence, it is not.