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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007Is 'did you watch it yet?' o.k?
Hi. Recently on a television programme, I heard the line: 'Did you watch it yet?', said by one character to another, referring to a movie. Is this idiomatic? Or even grammatical? If not, I should like to be told exactly what's wrong with it.I was under the impression that 'Have you watched it yet?' is the only acceptable form, though I haven't ever really thought about it. Also,I would appreciate any information you can conjure up on the status of the above in regional dialects and casual colloquial contexts, in case it isn't idiomatic in standard English. Thanks in advance for any replies. > Hi. Recently on a television programme, I heard the line: 'Did you > watch it yet?', said by one character to another, referring to a movie. > Is this idiomatic? If uttered spontaneously within a definable social group (e.g. Midwest Americans but not all speakers of English as a mother tongue) a phrase or sentence is ipso facto idiomatic. > Or even grammatical? If not, I should like to be > told exactly what's wrong with it.I was under the impression that 'Have > you watched it yet?' is the only acceptable form, though I haven't ever > really thought about it. You are now free to choose between traditional and contemporary approaches to grammar. The traditional method (dominant until 30 years ago) was that centuries of usage had generated prescriptive rules and new forms that broke those rules were "ungrammatical." The contemporary method is based on the idea of continuous evolution -- so that no rules defined at date T are "forwards compatible": they may not be used at date T + n to classify other utterances as either right or wrong.  SignatureDon Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) > "jinhyun" <jinhyunshyam@gmail.com> wrote >> Hi. Recently on a television programme, I heard the line: 'Did >> you watch it yet?', said by one character to another, referring [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > not be used at date T + n to classify other utterances > as either right or wrong. In other words: Anything Goes! SignaturePosted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com The cybercypher entity posted thusly: >> "jinhyun" <jinhyunshyam@gmail.com> wrote > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > >In other words: Anything Goes! Almostly! > The cybercypher entity posted thusly: > [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > > Almostly! No, Cole Porter. --Jeff SignatureThe shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same. --Stendhal |
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