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The "but" has no place in that sentence. "Although he is tall he cannot reach the box" is fine, the comma seems superfluous to me. BrEng native.
DuncanHill (
talk) 12:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
I wouldn't use the comma either — this is the exact example we were given. (The comma was a smaller part of my confusion, but it's acceptable, whereas the 'but' seems completely wrong.)
TotallyNotSarcasm[lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ][kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 12:58, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Either "Although he is tall, he cannot reach the box" or "he is tall, but he cannot reach the box". --
Khajidha (
talk) 12:37, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
It sounds as if either your school or your memory is faulty. "Although ..... but ..." is not a valid construction in standard English.
Dbfirs 13:08, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
CanEng native speaker. I would always use a comma in that construction. I accept that it's not technically required, but I find "Although he is tall he cannot reach the box" difficult to parse, despite being a short sentence.
Matt Deres (
talk) 13:23, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Huh. Maybe it's a BrEng+IndEng thing. I would also never actually use 'cannot'; it would be can't. Is there a pause in your speech when you say it? There isn't for me.
TotallyNotSarcasm[lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ][kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 13:38, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
I'm not the person you asked, but this American would always use a comma there and does pause at that point in the sentence. --
Khajidha (
talk) 13:41, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
TotallyNotSarcasm, apologies for doubting your memory. Teachers do sometimes get things wrong. I prefer the version with the comma, too, and have a slight pause there.
Dbfirs 13:47, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
It's fine. Heck, it's what I'd've done. Also, now that I think about it, sometimes I'd use a comma, sometimes not. It's one of those things which you just know, and can't explain to a non-native. Edit: I think I've got it — I'd definitely use a comma with 'cannot, but it varies with 'can't'. If it was 'Though he is ... the box', I'd use it.
TotallyNotSarcasm[lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ][kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 14:15, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
(e/c) I would typically use can't as well, but cannot is fine too, especially if I need to emphasize it for some reason. Come to think of it, I would probably use couldn't/could not unless the action was happening in front of me and I was commentating on it; cannot/can't is strictly present-tense for me and so inappropriate for later reports. And, yes, there would be a pause for me between "tall" and "he".
Matt Deres (
talk) 14:22, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
In Indian English, the word 'doubt' is used as follows:
The students were encouraged to ask their doubts about the subject.
It is similar to a 'query', but is generally about an explanation (as opposed to a statement or rule) and conveys a sense of semi-formality, while 'query' feels more formal. For example, you would ask a doubt to your physics teacher about, say, Ohm's Law, but a question to the principal about the timings of the school would be a query.
The other use ('there was some doubt in their minds') exists, but is rare.
In British English, one might have a doubt, and would ask about it. The sentence from Indian English would be understood in the UK, but would not be regarded as standard. One would normally ask a question when one has a doubt or a query about a subject.
Dbfirs 13:36, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
In British English, might one really "have a doubt"? In my North American English, "doubt" in the singular is strictly a mass noun. One can "have doubt" or "have some doubt", but not "have a doubt". (Curiously, the plural "have doubts" does exist.) I used to work with people from India and I remember tham saying "I have a doubt", and it always sounded wrong/foreign to me. --
69.159.11.113 (
talk) 21:10, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Yes one might. It might sound foreign to you because, from your perspective, it is. Much as the American English "I could care less" sounds bizarre to me.
Bazza (
talk) 21:19, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
"I could care less" sounds worse than bizarre to this American. --
Khajidha (
talk) 13:34, 12 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Yes, it's supposed to be "I couldn't care less" (since they don't care at all, it isn't possible to care any less). When they change it to "could", they reverse the meaning.
SinisterLefty (
talk) 13:52, 13 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Not found in American English and I'm not even sure if it would be understood. --
Khajidha (
talk) 13:37, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
PS - I would "ask a question" in all of the given situations. "Query" as a noun is fairly rare in the dialect I am familiar with. You might query a person, but you would not speak of having a query or asking a query. --
Khajidha (
talk) 13:39, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
In American English the closest we have is "express their doubts", but that means announcing that they are skeptical about something.
SinisterLefty (
talk) 13:43, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
The same in British English. Google ngrams finds zero examples of "ask a doubt" in British or American English, and zero for "ask a query" in British English. It finds only a very few examples of "ask a query" in American English, and these are all recent in the context of querying a database. It finds a single example from Indian English.
Dbfirs 14:01, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
I'm not very familiar with how ngrams works, but I'm wondering if "ask a query" is uncommon because there's an element of code switching? A "query" is more formal, so it gets submitted to the database or directed at a person. "Ask" is for more everyday usage.
Matt Deres (
talk) 14:27, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Yes, ngrams finds only the exact phrase in the corpus it searches. "Submit a query" is eight times more common than "ask a query"
Dbfirs 14:35, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
TotallyNotSarcasm, are you sure that this is common in Indian English? I don't claim to know Indian English myself, but the
NOW and iWeb corpora are extraordinarily large, and when I looked in each for "ask [word] doubt(s) about" [NB this is what I was looking for, not the search string I used], expecting to get dozens if not hundreds of tokens, I got just one: Around the tastefully done up house (Dharani was her mother-in-law’s pet name) and garden, women of all ages, dressed in dance rehearsal attire, are going around, with many coming up to ask her doubts about the grand programme they are putting up in connection with the silver jubilee celebrations of the school (from
this article in The Hindu). Note that it's a slightly different construction from yours: people aren't asking their doubts, they're instead asking somebody doubts. I haven't looked for all the imaginable permutations (you can do this if interested), but I did look in iWeb for "asked doubts about", and I got zero tokens. --
Hoary (
talk) 23:09, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
My Indian colleagues, when asking about some detail in a project spec, will sometimes say, "I have a doubt." I've not heard them use the construction the OP posed. ←
Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 00:19, 12 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Yeah, "doubt" means "question" in Indian English and it's not specific to the construction the OP gives as an example. Quora is full of people asking about this.
Haukur (
talk) 00:34, 12 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Ah, I see. But
iWeb has a number of Australian and other tokens of "raised a doubt", several among which seem, I sleepily think, to be about questions expressed to others rather than about insufficiencies of certainty. --
Hoary (
talk) 13:40, 12 July 2019 (UTC)reply
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The "but" has no place in that sentence. "Although he is tall he cannot reach the box" is fine, the comma seems superfluous to me. BrEng native.
DuncanHill (
talk) 12:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
I wouldn't use the comma either — this is the exact example we were given. (The comma was a smaller part of my confusion, but it's acceptable, whereas the 'but' seems completely wrong.)
TotallyNotSarcasm[lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ][kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 12:58, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Either "Although he is tall, he cannot reach the box" or "he is tall, but he cannot reach the box". --
Khajidha (
talk) 12:37, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
It sounds as if either your school or your memory is faulty. "Although ..... but ..." is not a valid construction in standard English.
Dbfirs 13:08, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
CanEng native speaker. I would always use a comma in that construction. I accept that it's not technically required, but I find "Although he is tall he cannot reach the box" difficult to parse, despite being a short sentence.
Matt Deres (
talk) 13:23, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Huh. Maybe it's a BrEng+IndEng thing. I would also never actually use 'cannot'; it would be can't. Is there a pause in your speech when you say it? There isn't for me.
TotallyNotSarcasm[lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ][kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 13:38, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
I'm not the person you asked, but this American would always use a comma there and does pause at that point in the sentence. --
Khajidha (
talk) 13:41, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
TotallyNotSarcasm, apologies for doubting your memory. Teachers do sometimes get things wrong. I prefer the version with the comma, too, and have a slight pause there.
Dbfirs 13:47, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
It's fine. Heck, it's what I'd've done. Also, now that I think about it, sometimes I'd use a comma, sometimes not. It's one of those things which you just know, and can't explain to a non-native. Edit: I think I've got it — I'd definitely use a comma with 'cannot, but it varies with 'can't'. If it was 'Though he is ... the box', I'd use it.
TotallyNotSarcasm[lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ][kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 14:15, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
(e/c) I would typically use can't as well, but cannot is fine too, especially if I need to emphasize it for some reason. Come to think of it, I would probably use couldn't/could not unless the action was happening in front of me and I was commentating on it; cannot/can't is strictly present-tense for me and so inappropriate for later reports. And, yes, there would be a pause for me between "tall" and "he".
Matt Deres (
talk) 14:22, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
In Indian English, the word 'doubt' is used as follows:
The students were encouraged to ask their doubts about the subject.
It is similar to a 'query', but is generally about an explanation (as opposed to a statement or rule) and conveys a sense of semi-formality, while 'query' feels more formal. For example, you would ask a doubt to your physics teacher about, say, Ohm's Law, but a question to the principal about the timings of the school would be a query.
The other use ('there was some doubt in their minds') exists, but is rare.
In British English, one might have a doubt, and would ask about it. The sentence from Indian English would be understood in the UK, but would not be regarded as standard. One would normally ask a question when one has a doubt or a query about a subject.
Dbfirs 13:36, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
In British English, might one really "have a doubt"? In my North American English, "doubt" in the singular is strictly a mass noun. One can "have doubt" or "have some doubt", but not "have a doubt". (Curiously, the plural "have doubts" does exist.) I used to work with people from India and I remember tham saying "I have a doubt", and it always sounded wrong/foreign to me. --
69.159.11.113 (
talk) 21:10, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Yes one might. It might sound foreign to you because, from your perspective, it is. Much as the American English "I could care less" sounds bizarre to me.
Bazza (
talk) 21:19, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
"I could care less" sounds worse than bizarre to this American. --
Khajidha (
talk) 13:34, 12 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Yes, it's supposed to be "I couldn't care less" (since they don't care at all, it isn't possible to care any less). When they change it to "could", they reverse the meaning.
SinisterLefty (
talk) 13:52, 13 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Not found in American English and I'm not even sure if it would be understood. --
Khajidha (
talk) 13:37, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
PS - I would "ask a question" in all of the given situations. "Query" as a noun is fairly rare in the dialect I am familiar with. You might query a person, but you would not speak of having a query or asking a query. --
Khajidha (
talk) 13:39, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
In American English the closest we have is "express their doubts", but that means announcing that they are skeptical about something.
SinisterLefty (
talk) 13:43, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
The same in British English. Google ngrams finds zero examples of "ask a doubt" in British or American English, and zero for "ask a query" in British English. It finds only a very few examples of "ask a query" in American English, and these are all recent in the context of querying a database. It finds a single example from Indian English.
Dbfirs 14:01, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
I'm not very familiar with how ngrams works, but I'm wondering if "ask a query" is uncommon because there's an element of code switching? A "query" is more formal, so it gets submitted to the database or directed at a person. "Ask" is for more everyday usage.
Matt Deres (
talk) 14:27, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Yes, ngrams finds only the exact phrase in the corpus it searches. "Submit a query" is eight times more common than "ask a query"
Dbfirs 14:35, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
TotallyNotSarcasm, are you sure that this is common in Indian English? I don't claim to know Indian English myself, but the
NOW and iWeb corpora are extraordinarily large, and when I looked in each for "ask [word] doubt(s) about" [NB this is what I was looking for, not the search string I used], expecting to get dozens if not hundreds of tokens, I got just one: Around the tastefully done up house (Dharani was her mother-in-law’s pet name) and garden, women of all ages, dressed in dance rehearsal attire, are going around, with many coming up to ask her doubts about the grand programme they are putting up in connection with the silver jubilee celebrations of the school (from
this article in The Hindu). Note that it's a slightly different construction from yours: people aren't asking their doubts, they're instead asking somebody doubts. I haven't looked for all the imaginable permutations (you can do this if interested), but I did look in iWeb for "asked doubts about", and I got zero tokens. --
Hoary (
talk) 23:09, 11 July 2019 (UTC)reply
My Indian colleagues, when asking about some detail in a project spec, will sometimes say, "I have a doubt." I've not heard them use the construction the OP posed. ←
Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 00:19, 12 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Yeah, "doubt" means "question" in Indian English and it's not specific to the construction the OP gives as an example. Quora is full of people asking about this.
Haukur (
talk) 00:34, 12 July 2019 (UTC)reply
Ah, I see. But
iWeb has a number of Australian and other tokens of "raised a doubt", several among which seem, I sleepily think, to be about questions expressed to others rather than about insufficiencies of certainty. --
Hoary (
talk) 13:40, 12 July 2019 (UTC)reply