you should really not

[ademoglu]

Hi,

A: According to my CV, I speak English fluently.
B: You should not lie about your CV.
C (turns to A): Yeah! You shoud really not!

Is it OK to put 'really' before 'not'?

Thanks.

 

[emsr2d2]

Colloquially, yes.

Note that B should be "You should not lie on your CV". A is not lying about his/her CV, he/she is lying about his/her level of English.

 

[GoesStation]

Only you really shouldn't sounds natural to my AmE ears.

 

[teechar]

Yeah! You really should [STRIKE]really[/STRIKE] not!

.

 

[Tdol]

Only you really shouldn't sounds natural to my AmE ears.

Both positions are possible in BrE.

 

[TheParser]

Is it OK to put 'really' before 'not'?

NOT A TEACHER

Hello, Ademoglu:

I just wanted to share some information that really interested me.

1. Really, he had not expected that.
2. He had not expected that, really.
3. He had really not expected that.

My source A tells me that the position of "really" in those three sentences indicates that "really" is being used as a sentential adverb (sentence adverb).

According to my source B, those sentences would mean something like this:

"Yes, I'm telling you the truth in spite of what you might think: he had not expected that."

*****

If you accept that analysis from sources A and B, then maybe "You should really not lie on your CV" means something like: "I'm telling you the truth: you should not lie on your CV."

*****

As GoesStation reminded us, however, we usually would say: "You really should not lie on your CV."

In such a sentence, "really" is NOT a sentential adverb. It appears to be an emphasizer of the predicate, in my opinion.


Source A: R.M.W. Dixon, A Semantic Approach to English Grammar (2005), courtesy of Google "books"; source B: Romer and Schulze, Patterns, Meaningful Units and Specialized Discourses (2010), courtesy of Google "books."