English Questions & Short Answers 1
Question Index:
Content:
Does she have or Has she?
In American English they use the auxiliary verbs “do” and “does” because the main verb is “have”. Examples:- “Do you have a child?”
- “Does she have a child?”
In British English we do not use the auxiliary verbs “do” or “does”. Instead, the main verb is “got”, and “have” is the auxiliary verb. Examples:
- “Have you got a child?”
- “Has she got a child?”
*Notice: that in both cases the third person singular is different.
“Has” vs. “have”
As you may know, have and has are both present forms of the verb to have and are employed with the verb have alone (for a present simple), with have/has (used as an auxiliary verb) and the past participle of another verb (for a present perfect) or with have/has (used as an auxiliary verb), the past participle of be and the past participle of another verb (for a present perfect continuous).Has is used with a third singular person ("he", "she", "it", or a noun) i.e. when the subject is singular but it's neither the person who's writing/speaking ("I") or the person who's reading/listening ("you"):
- He has just asked a question.
Have is used in any other case:
- Can anyone tell me when we have to use "have", etc.
- I have just copied a sentence from your question.
- Have you noticed it?
What is correct "My name has five letters." or "My name have five letters."?
The correct answer is "My name has five letters". By identifying the object as a pronoun, we can figure if we need to apply the third person spelling rules [My name = it], and hence it has five letters since it is used along with he or she to invoke the third person spelling rules.“Has” or “have” in this sentence "Mr. Raj is one of the famous teachers who has/have come to teach you now."
The subject of the relative clause is who. It stands in place of the famous teachers. That makes it plural, so you need have.How can I negate or confirm a question tersely using negation?
From a logical point of view, the answer no negates the negation, and yes confirms it.But how would a native speaker react when s/he asked "Don't you love me any more?" and got yes or no as answer?
German has a special word, doch, which is used only for negating a negation in a question. But without this word it's difficult to respond tersely, and in a way that would be understood.
Answer:
Yes, that's true. It can be difficult in English to be both brief and understood.In English usage, when we ask a question in a negative form, we usually anticipate a negative answer, so any brief answer will probably be construed that way. In fact, this is so true that the opposing answer, "Yes," to that same question, would often be simply confusing. To be perfectly clear that that one still loves the one asking this question, you would really need to expound more: Yes, I still love you or Of course, I still love you or something like that.
A positive question, You still love me? or Do you still love me? does not necessarily carry this negative expectation. A simple yes or no will not likely be misunderstood.
Difference between being "ill" and "sick"?
While those might mean the same for the layman, from a medical point of view, there is a difference between illness and sickness.Medical sociology has long made the distinction between illness and sickness.
Illness is the objective diagnosis that an external impartial observer is able to make based on the constellation of symptoms which the patient presents.
Sickness is the social role that the patient adopts as the patient and other concerned stakeholders, in relationship with the patient, interpret the meaning of the illness.
Is there any difference between “which” and “that”? What is the difference between the words which and that?
For example I have the following sentences:- “I have a car which is blue.”
- “I have a car that is blue.”
Answer:
There is no difference in meaning. There is a difference in use.Relative clauses—the sort of clause you use, “which is blue” / “that is blue”, which tells us something more about the noun referred to by which or that—are of two sorts: restrictive and nonrestrictive.
A restrictive clause restricts the noun it modifies to what’s defined in the clause. The clause identifies the noun and is essential to your meaning. For instance:
- I looked at the books which he sent me last week. … The books I’m talking about are the ones which he sent me last week.
- I looked at the books, which he sent me last week. … The books have already been identified in our discourse, I’m just throwing in a by-the-way comment about when I got them.
- That may only be used at the head of a restrictive clause. It is not used, in any register, with a nonrestrictive clause.
- Which may be used at the head of either sort of clause.
But the fact is, this division has never been generally adopted, and there’s no reason to follow it. I myself don’t follow it; quite the opposite, I employ “which” wherever I can, because I believe that that has entirely too much work to do already and a multiplicity of thats is likely to confuse the reader.
But that’s my choice. You’re free to follow your own rule, as long as you don’t put that at the head of a non-restrictive clause.
How would a native speaker understand “Time flies like an arrow”?
“Time flies like an arrow” is often cited to illustrate problems with computer aided language processing. It is also an example of how ambiguous English can be.But is it really so ambiguous? How would it be understood by a native speaker?
Answer:
The sentence 'Time flies like an arrow', with or without context, is very unambiguous to the native speaker. 'Time' is the subject, it metaphorically 'flies' as fast and without stopping 'like an arrow.But the phrase is often accompanied, either before or after, by
- Fruit flies like a banana.
- Time flies like an arrow
- Fruit flies like a banana
But with respect to the other sentence one could say
Fruit (subject) flies (verb) like a banana (prepositional phrase).
It is this sentence that is the most ambiguous. not the 'time flies' sentence.
The latter parsing is not at all expected and so would not be understood naturally by a native speaker.
Large, huge or big communities?
When I talk about many people, like community, what should I use?- A large community
- A huge community
- A big community
In my native language (German), we use just one word for that: groß. What is the difference in English?
Answer:
Per this NGram, large is far more common overall than big and huge put together, so in any context where you're not sure which word to use, treat large as the default.Also note that parents normally introduce their children to big before large (probably because it seems phonetically simpler and more distinctive). So in later life people may see big as slightly childish/informal, where large appears more "grown-up"/formal.
I suggest avoiding huge unless you really want to emphasise abnormally large. But as @barbara says, there are many alternatives in that case (enormous, gigantic, vast etc.). It's also worth noting that in casual speech, people often use "quirky/unusual" alternatives such as humungous, ginormous, thumping. It's best to avoid those unless you're in company where you notice others doing it.
The only "rule" I can think of to help decide when it's better to choose big over large is that big becomes more likely in contexts which are more metaphorical (as opposed to "literal", when you're talking about the physical size of something).
Thus, there's nothing to choose between a big man and a large man, because that's simply the literal sense. But in...
- That was big of him (he did something noble/generous).
- It was a big disappointment (it was very disappointing).
- He's just bigging himself up (he's trying to make himself appear more important than he really is).
Of course, there will be plenty of exceptions to my above "rule" (as in the relatively recent BrE slang giving it large, being noisily aggressive). So just think of it as a "slight tendency".
Between two options, which does “former” refer to and which does “latter”?
For example:James was talking to Karl, the former being much smarter than the latter.
Is James the former or the latter? What is the rule?
Answer:
Basically: "former" = "first item in a pair", "latter" = "second item in a pair".So, in your case, "the former" is James, while "the latter" is Karl.
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