Bill, this is amazing!  Thank you so much!
Jane

On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 3:19 PM, Spruiell, William C <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> 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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