Marshall, Jane, et al.:
"Mustn't" and "needn't" sound hyperformal to me as well, and I associate them older novels and spoken British English. I don't think U.S. speakers use "need" (as opposed to "need to") nearly as often in the semi-modal version, so that might be factoring into the mix. But then, linguist's ideas about usage can be just as wrong as anyone else's.
Here are some data that may or may not be interesting (I got curious and went into hunter-gatherer mode). They're ratios from COCA and the BYU version of the British National Corpus (COCA's got a lot more words, period, so the base counts don't provide any direct evidence for American/British differences; the ratios, however, might). I'm operating under the assumption that the overall distribution of un-negated modals is different from that of negated ones, and that the distribution of the contracted-negated version can be different from that of the un-contracted negated one:
COCA (U.S.)
811 (mustn't) to 3671 (must not) = .22
165749 (can't) to 101 (cannot) + 64615 (can not) = 2.56
1079 (needn't) to 3309 (need not) = .33
13780 (don't have to) to 939 (do not have to) = 14.68
Needn't per million = .0000026975
Mustn't per million = .0000020275
Can't per million = 0004143725
BNC (Britain)
911 (mustn't) to 1893 (must not) = .48
30298 (can't) to 21715 (can not) = 1.40
492 (needn't) to 1770 (need not) = .28
1750 (don't have to) to 366 (do not have to) = 4.78
Needn't per million = .00000492
Mustn't per million = .00000911
Can't per million = .00030298
British:American ratios (Assumes COCA is 400 mil words and BNC is 100 mil; these figures are approximate; I don't know the exact number of words, but it's unlikely to be exactly that even a figure):
Needn't: 1.82
Mustn't: 4.49
Can't: 0.73
The British seem to use "needn't" and "musn't" more often, with the imbalance being particularly pronounced with "mustn't." Distribution across genre is interesting. For the American corpus, "needn't" was found mostly in magazines and fiction, while "mustn't" was found almost exclusively in fiction. There were very, very few examples in sampled speech. The BNC, on the other hand, shows a hefty portion of "mustn'ts" occuring in spoken English, although a slightly higher proportion are in fiction; "needn't" shows a similar pattern, with fiction having proportionally more examples but spoken still having a fair number.
--- Bill Spruiell
From: Marshall Myers <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Reply-To: ATEG English Grammar <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:35:31 +0000
To: ATEG English Grammar <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: Mustn't/needn't
Jane,
In American English, I agree that they sound normal to me, although not as prevalent as other forms.
Marshall
p.s. If you look at the auxiliary forms (shall-should, can-could,etc), there is no pairing for must, the other form disappearing after Chaucer.
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jane Saral
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 11:47 AM
To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Mustn't/needn't
I have a niece in Germany married (for 15 years or so) to a German. She tutors children in English and asks the following question:
"Do you ever use "needn't or mustn't" when you speak? Maybe it's British because it sure sounds weird to me. Kids have to learn this in 5th grade and to me it seems like unnecessary vocabulary..."
Both sound normal to me. But that might be because I lived and taught in England for several years.
Jane Saral
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