Herb and Don, thank you for your responses.
I know the problem, the sentence parts and functions, and the correction.
My question is whether this error is becoming acceptable.
I've heard it on the national news and on Oprah.
Christen in Baltimore
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Stahlke, Herbert F.W.
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2004 2:47 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: this bugs me!
Paul has the translation right; it's a dialect variant of "She asked me if I
had the book." This is a fairly well-studied feature of some non-standard
dialects. Standard English allows subject-verb inversion only in main
clauses, as in "Do you have the book?" In indirect questions SE uses a
subordinating conjunction without inversion. Non-standard dialects, on the
other hand, invert in both main and subordinate clauses. This, like the
prepositions problem, is something students have to master in school if they
don't come to school with it and if they are to become competent in Standard
English.
Herb
________________________________
I wouldn't mind it if it were written like this:
"She asked me if I had the book." Nor would this bother me: "She asked me,
'Do you have the book?'." But the way your student wrote it is definitely
ugly! It's actually incorrect, becuase she couldn't have asked, "Did I have
the book?" unless she wasn't sure of what she, herself, had.
I don't know that I'm being clear, here. The problem is between "I" versus
"you" in the question "she asked."
Paul E. Doniger
Christine Gray <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Does this bother anyone on the list:
"She asked me did I have the book?"
Is this construction now accepted as being all right?
Christine in Baltimore
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