[Grammar] Using of "... did we have ..."

[Farbauti]

First - hello to all I am new in this forum

Unfortunately I didn't found anything usable relating to my issue.
I struggle with the following sentence construction (from an english workbook):

"Not only did we have problems with the flight, which was delayed by four hours, but the hotel room was also extremely noisy."

I have learned that the usage of do/did is rather limited to questions (like "Why did we have problems with the flight?") and negations (like "We didn't have problems with the flight").

Or is this a kind of accentuation? Would a sentence like "Not only had we problems with the flight (...)" also be gramatically correct, in principle?

Thank you for your help.

 

[MikeNewYork]

First - hello to all I am new in this forum

Unfortunately I didn't found anything usable relating to my issue.
I struggle with the following sentence construction (from an english workbook):

"Not only did we have problems with the flight, which was delayed by four hours, but the hotel room was also extremely noisy."

I have learned that the usage of do/did is rather limited to questions (like "Why did we have problems with the flight?") and negations (like "We didn't have problems with the flight").

Or is this a kind of accentuation? Would a sentence like "Not only had we problems with the flight (...)" also be gramatically correct, in principle?

Thank you for your help.

There are other uses of do/does/did. I assume you are asking about these verbs as auxiliary verbs. They can also be action verbs. Besides questions and negations, these auxiliary verbs can be used to place emphasis on an action. "Mom, I know you think I forgot to walk the dog, but I did walk him before I left. In your sentence, the sentence starts with "not only". This requires an inversion of the subject and verb. We use an auxiliary verb for this purpose. "We had problems with the flight" becomes "Not only did we have problems with the flight". At the end of the sentence you have "also" in the wrong position. It means that something else was noisy, but that was not the problem with the flight. It should be "but also the hotel room was extremely noisy".

 

[Farbauti]

Hello MikeNewYork,

thank you very much!

But I wonder about the "also" in the wrong position. The given sentence is only a transcript of the "answer key" from the workbook. The copied paragraph is

"Dear Sir,
I am writing to complain about my recent holiday with Sunshine Tours. Every time I travel with your company something goes wrong. Not only did we have problems with the flight, which was delayed by four hours, but the hotel room was also extremely noisy. (..)"

Eventually the context placed the "also" in the given position?


In the workbook-chapter the last sentence is (I have to find the two mistakes in it):

"(...) Not only we had problems with the flight, which was delayed by four hours, but also was the hotel room extremely noisy. (...)"

Thank you for your help

 

[MikeNewYork]

Hello MikeNewYork,

thank you very much!

But I wonder about the "also" in the wrong position. The given sentence is only a transcript of the "answer key" from the workbook. The copied paragraph is

"Dear Sir,
I am writing to complain about my recent holiday with Sunshine Tours. Every time I travel with your company something goes wrong. Not only did we have problems with the flight, which was delayed by four hours, but the hotel room was also extremely noisy. (..)"

Eventually the context placed the "also" in the given position?


In the workbook-chapter the last sentence is (I have to find the two mistakes in it):

"(...) Not only we had problems with the flight, which was delayed by four hours, but also was the hotel room extremely noisy. (...)"

Thank you for your help

Again, for "but the hotel room was also extremely noisy" to be correct there would have to be something else that was extremely noisy.

The two errors in the workbook sentence are failure to invert the subject and verb in the first clause and inverting the subject and verb in the second clause.

Not only did we have problems with the flight, which was delayed by four hours, but also the hotel room was extremely noisy.

 

[Farbauti]

Thank you very much, that helped me a lot.

:up: