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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 know exactly what is wrong with it. I was under the impression that 'Have you watched it yet?' was the only acceptable form, though I haven't ever really thought about it, and now that I think about it,I am totally confused. Even if it isn't quite proper English,would it pass in a casual colloquial context. 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 [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > totally confused. Even if it isn't quite proper English,would it pass > in a casual colloquial context. Thanks in advance for any replies. To put it simply, in British-type English the "Have you watched. . ." version is the norm in speech and writing. Many American speakers use the "Did you. . ." form, though I don't think it's acceptable in very formal AmE (I'll be corrected if I'm wrong about this).  SignatureMike. -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > "jinhyun" <jinhyunshyam@gmail.com> wrote >> Hi. Recently on a television programme, I heard the line:'Did you > watch [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > acceptable in very formal AmE (I'll be corrected if I'm wrong > about this). Despite what His Honor says about there not being a rule in AmE against "Did you watch it yet?", it would be marked wrong on a formal English test on which "Have you watched it yet?" was also an option. AFAIC, it falls into the same category as "If I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't be dead now". PS: Thank you for posting the bit about TeraNews, Mike. I haven't been able to use my Seednet news server or the Google Groups servers recently. The "free" TeraNews server now charges a one-time set-up fee of $3.95 (I guess that's US$). But at least I can read and post using XNews, my favorite, once again. SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. "If you are still not convinced of the a.s-brain connection, finish this sentence: 'It is easier to think after I … (a) get a haircut (b) take a dump'." Scott Adams, The Dilbert Blog, 12 Jan 2007; http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/ Posting from the no longer 100% free "free.teranews.com" News Server -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com cybercypher <cybercypher@gmail.com> wrote [...] > PS: Thank you for posting the bit about TeraNews, Mike. I haven't > been able to use my Seednet news server or the Google Groups > servers recently. The "free" TeraNews server now charges a > one-time set-up fee of $3.95 (I guess that's US$). But at least I > can read and post using XNews, my favorite, once again. > SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. "If you are still not convinced of the a.s-brain connection, finish this sentence: 'It is easier to think after I … (a) get a haircut (b) take a dump'." Scott Adams, The Dilbert Blog, 12 Jan 2007; http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/ Posting from the no longer 100% free "free.teranews.com" News Server -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com Hmmm. I see that Mike didn't knowingly advertise teranews. I will cease and desist. Advertising, that is. -- Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor Native speaker of American English; posting from Taiwan. "If you are still not convinced of the a.s-brain connection, finish this sentence: 'It is easier to think after I … (a) get a haircut (b) take a dump'." Scott Adams, The Dilbert Blog, 12 Jan 2007; http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/ -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > cybercypher <cybercypher@gmail.com> wrote > [...] > > PS: Thank you for posting the bit about TeraNews, Mike. [...] > Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > > Hmmm. I see that Mike didn't knowingly advertise teranews. I will cease > and desist. Advertising, that is. [...] The cheeky bastards! I didn't realize that was happening: thanks for alerting me, Franke. I don't consent to carry advertising. SignatureMike. cybercypher@gmail.com had it: > PS: Thank you for posting the bit about TeraNews, Mike. I haven't been > able to use my Seednet news server or the Google Groups servers > recently. The "free" TeraNews server now charges a one-time set-up fee > of $3.95 (I guess that's US$). But at least I can read and post using > XNews, my favorite, once again. I paid the $3.95 about five years ago - I find the service invaluable when travelling, although it's not as reliable as my own ISP. SignatureDavid ===== > Hi. Recently on a television programme, I heard the line:'Did you > watch it yet?', said by one character to another,referring to a [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > English,would it pass in a casual colloquial context. Thanks in > advance for any replies. It's common enough in informal speech in North America, even though, as you say, there is a rule against it. May I ask how there comes to be a duplicate of your message appended to the original? Is that caused by some flaw in the workings of gmail or (if you know) by something you did? > > Hi. Recently on a television programme, I heard the line:'Did you > > watch it yet?', said by one character to another,referring to a [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > It's common enough in informal speech in North America, even though, > as you say, there is a rule against it. [ ... ] I am aware of no such rule. Here's a perfectly natural context for the "Did you" form: Jack comes home, and Jill informs him that she's been to the local DVD rental place, picked up the DVD of "Titanic", and loaded it into the DVD player. Jack asks her: "Did you watch it yet?" To my ear as a native speaker of AmE, that's at least as idiomatic as "Have you watched it yet?" If there's any reason to prefer the latter, it's that the "Did you" form is not idiomatic everywhere. But no bells would flash or lights ring in if someone asked that question in that context in my home. And I reject the motion that there's any "rule" against it. SignatureBob Lieblich Pondian as they get >>> Hi. Recently on a television programme, I heard the line:'Did you >>> watch it yet?', said by one character to another,referring to a [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > question in that context in my home. And I reject the motion that > there's any "rule" against it. I plead guilty to generalizing from my own speech habits. I believe I do use the simple past carelessly in that kind of context (when a usage is often heard, it becomes hard to resist) , but I wouldn't use it in writing or in careful speech. The rule, or maybe "rule", requiring the use of the present perfect when speaking about an event that is shown as affecting the present ("yet"), is obviously not as widely applicable as I had thought. Is your (and the general US) usage uniform in all such contexts? Would it be all right to say "It's midnight and you didn't do your homework yet"? > I am aware of no such rule. Here's a perfectly natural context for > the "Did you" form: [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > watched it yet?" If there's any reason to prefer the latter, it's > that the "Did you" form is not idiomatic everywhere. For me, the "did you" form works there, but only without the "yet". Adding the "yet" sounds like Yiddish, already. If you have "yet" on the end, it can only be "have you watched". But then, I don't speak AmE. SignatureRegards John for mail: my initials plus a u e at tpg dot com dot au The CDB entity posted thusly: >> Hi. Recently on a television programme, I heard the line:'Did you >> watch it yet?', said by one character to another,referring to a [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >It's common enough in informal speech in North America, even though, >as you say, there is a rule against it. It sounds fine to this Canadian ear. >May I ask how there comes to be a duplicate of your message appended >to the original? Is that caused by some flaw in the workings of gmail >or (if you know) by something you did? In what way was it 'appended'? It showed up as a duplicate, but separate message here. > The CDB entity posted thusly: [usage question and answers] >> May I ask how there comes to be a duplicate of your message >> appended to the original? Is that caused by some flaw in the >> workings of gmail or (if you know) by something you did? > > In what way was it 'appended'? It showed up as a duplicate, but > separate message here. Directly below and indented, on my screen. I tried to check with Google, but the archives don't show the second message, or my reply, except as quoted in your and Peter's messages in a thread set up as if it had been initiated by Franke. The result of an attempt to retract the second sending, or because, though back, Ggglgps is not yet entirely well? > May I ask how there comes to be a duplicate of your message appended > to the original? Is that caused by some flaw in the workings of > gmail or (if you know) by something you did? I've made the same error many times with companies that don't give out contact information and force you to communicate with them via a web form. You submit your message, and there's no feedback to say whether the submission worked, so you make a second attempt. Or sometimes it's just a matter of pushing the "back" button on your browser. All you want to do is to get back to where you were before posting, and you don't necessarily realise that that will cause the "submit" operation to be repeated. This is one of the several reasons why a decent web interface to Usenet will probably never exist. One way it could be fixed in Google Groups would be to allow reading but not posting, but that would ruin the illusion that Google owns Usenet, an illusion that the Google people are working hard to promote. They're still putting their own copyright notice on postings that were never submitted on their server, a gross violation of copyright law that I hope someone will some day challenge. SignaturePeter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org Please note the changed e-mail and web addresses. The domain eepjm.newcastle.edu.au no longer exists, and I can no longer receive mail at my newcastle.edu.au addresses. The optusnet address could disappear at any time. [>>duplicate messages; >a child's garden of beartraps] Ah, thanks. Now I won't sleep tonight. Another snare could be the personal and technical incompetence of posters like yrobtsvt: it's a long shallow learning curve. |
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