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If we omit "Does" at the end of this sentence:' Does anybody get what I mean" it will become:" Anybody gets what I mean" or "Anybody get what I mean"?

Many thanks.

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Yoong Liat wrote:

If we omit "Does" at the end of this sentence:' Does anybody get what I mean" it will become:" Anybody gets what I mean" or "Anybody get what I mean"?

Many thanks.

It's fine to delete the "does." The "does" becomes implied. This means that it's still there for determining the verb form. You don't change "get" to "gets."

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Many thanks, Roberta.

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Quote:

f we omit "Does" at the end of this sentence:' Does anybody get what I mean" it will become:" Anybody gets what I mean" or "Anybody get what I mean"?

Answering your question as stated, concerning the sentence: "Does anybody get what I mean"...

1. You can't omit the word "Does" from the end of the sentence. Reason: it's at the beginning. The word "mean" is at the end.

2. It is not actually a sentence. A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark.

3. Omitting the word "Does" from the beginning will not magically attach a letter 's' to the end of the word 'get'. If you mean to ask whether it is the convention to do so, the answer is "no".

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"Anybody get what I mean?" is standard colloquial usage. Conversational.

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Hi Contrex

Can I say "Anybody gets what I mean"? (from 'Does anybody get what I mean?)

Thanks.

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Yoong Liat wrote:

Hi Contrex

Can I say "Anybody gets what I mean"? (from 'Does anybody get what I mean.)

Thanks.

No, you can't change the form of the verb "get." "Does" still functions in the sentence even though it's not there.

The correct version is "Anybody get what I mean?"

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Yoong Liat wrote:

Hi Contrex

Can I say "Anybody gets what I mean"? (from 'Does anybody get what I mean?)

Thanks.

I thought I had already answered this question firmly in the negative, with reasons!

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Thanks, Contrex. You've indeed. I misread.

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"You've indeed" is most improper! You have indeed!

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contrex wrote:

"You've indeed" is most improper! You have indeed!

Why is that so? I thought 'You've' is the short form of 'You have'.

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You certainly can say "you've" as in "You've got circles under your eyes", but we don't normally say it the way you did. So, it's not improper, just uncommon.

You've indeed - what? You've indeed told me.

There, that's better.

I hope you understand.

And the verb "get" is conjugated the same way as the others, as in "to want"

You would never say "you wants", or "I wants"... do you get it? Smile

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Roberta wrote:

"Anybody get what I mean?" is standard colloquial usage. Conversational.

Exactly.

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When we say "you have indeed" there is an emphasis on the "have" which vanishes if the "'ve" contraction is used.

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Hi Contrex

Just to confirm: When you said that it's improper, did you mean that I was impolite? If it's so, I would like to apologise because I didn't mean to do so.

My apologies for asking the question again. And, for Mame, please bear with me. Being a non-native speaker, I sometimes make mistakes without knowing it. This shows that I need to correspond more with native speakers if I want to improve my English.

Best wishes

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I've seen no impoliteness anywhere here, Yoong Liat.

Don't worry about it.

I was a tutor of ESL for many years. I understand that understanding does not come easily and that it's sometimes hard to find the right questions and the right way to ask them.

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No, Yoong, what Contrex meant is that it's generally not used that way when you want to emphasize the word "have". He said it very well, so just reread his post. It's not impolite, just not used that way. Improper is not always impolite.

I don't have a problem with questions, Yoong, it's only when it's the same question over and over where I get a bit impatient. Like all the comma ones! Smile

(I did give you a link so you can READ it!) - lol

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Mame wrote:

No, Yoong, what Contrex meant is that it's generally not used that way when you want to emphasize the word "have".

That's right. "Improper" has other meanings than "impolite"

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Thanks, Contrex. I thought I offended you.

Thanks, Mame, for your explanation. As for the comma, I've read what you posted and I've also read three books on punctuation written by native speakers. But, somehow when confronted by whether to insert a comma, I'm confused. I hope you get what I mean. It's like knowing karate and the ability to defend oneself in a real situation. Do you get the picture?

Best regards

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Regarding the word improper, you may be interested to know that, in arithmetic, a fraction where the numerator is larger than the denominator, e.g. 22/7, is called either an "improper" or a "vulgar" fraction.

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