Should "need" here be "needs"?

Forums: English, Esl, Grammar
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Context:

But supposing God became a man—suppose our
human nature which can suffer and die was amal-
gamated with God's nature in one person—then
that person could help us. He could surrender His
will, and suffer and die, because He was man; and
He could do it perfectly because He was God. You
and 1 can go through this process only if God does it
in us; but God can do it only if He becomes man.
Our attempts at this dying will succeed only if we
men share in God's dying, just as our thinking can
succeed only because it is a drop out of the ocean
of His intelligence: but we cannot share God's dying
unless God dies; and He cannot die except by being
a man. That is the sense in which He pays our debt,
and suffers for us what He Himself need not suffer
at all.'

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Type: Question • Score: 9 • Views: 1,763 • Replies: 34

View best answer, chosen by oristarA

@oristarA,

"need not" = 67.2 million google results

"needs not" = 3.3 million google results

you sir are becoming lazy!

0 Replies

@oristarA,

Need seems correct. If you really want 'needs', you would have to do some rewording and end up with something like 'he needs to not suffer. . . .', which just sounds rather more awkward than the original.

3 Replies

@roger,

error...

"need not suffer " means suffering is not required

"needs to not suffer" means that suffering is not wanted.

apples and oranges my friend.

2 Replies

@hawkeye10,

Are you trying to determine an answer by counting google hits?

3 Replies

@roger,

our Chinaman here could have and should have used google first, because he would have seen for himself that "needs not" is highly unlikely to be correct. even the 3.3 million hits for it contain a lot of "needs, not" and "needs (not" so looking at a couple of pages of results would have further informed him.

mostly i am trying to be helpful, but I have never trusted this guy because he refuses to tell us what he intends to use his expert english language skills for.

4 Replies

@hawkeye10,

I think I would rather just try to answer the question.

1 Reply

@roger,

roger wrote:

I think I would rather just try to answer the question.

and yet we dont take this view with all of the school kids who are trying to get their homework done on a2k, we almost all tell them to **** off....the double standard is interesting. one of the things that makes a2k weird is how important language is to so many of us, and i think that our willingness tolorate stupid questions by those who are trying to learn english is indicative of that.

0 Replies

@oristarA,

ooo give roger the red ribbon

do not google

Quote:

tolorate

0 Replies

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

error...

"need not suffer " means suffering is not required

"needs to not suffer" means that suffering is not wanted.

apples and oranges my friend.

Good point.

If "He need not suffer" is correct, "We need not suffer" correct as well?

0 Replies

@roger,

roger wrote:

Need seems correct. If you really want 'needs', you would have to do some rewording and end up with something like 'he needs to not suffer. . . .', which just sounds rather more awkward than the original.

Thank you.
Do you mean singular form is equal to its plural form here?
Both "He need not suffer" and "They need not suffer" are correct?

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

our Chinaman here could have and should have used google first,

have you forgotten that China censors/limits what is available to internet users?

2 Replies

@oristarA,

Quote:

Both "He need not suffer" and "They need not suffer" are correct?

Yes.

0 Replies

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

hawkeye10 wrote:

our Chinaman here could have and should have used google first,

have you forgotten that China censors/limits what is available to internet users?

And anyway, counting Google results is not a particularly good way to learn grammar.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

hawkeye10 wrote:

our Chinaman here could have and should have used google first,

have you forgotten that China censors/limits what is available to internet users?

Good point

0 Replies

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

And anyway, counting Google results is not a particularly good way to learn grammar.

definitely not the approach I'd recommend

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

our Chinaman here

Is this just your own level of stupidity/ignorance, Hawk?

Quote:

mostly i am trying to be helpful, but I have never trusted this guy because he refuses to tell us what he intends to use his expert english language skills for.

No need to answer the question above. You've just outdone yourself.

You sound like a typical paranoid American.

Don't try to be helpful because your knowledge of how English works is worse than abysmal.

0 Replies

@ehBeth,

Not just to Beth.

Using Google is obviously not a way to learn grammar. But learning grammar is not the way to learn a language.

Google is an excellent source for checking English usage patterns. It's not the end all and be all but it is very useful, if, IF you know what you are doing.

Hawkeye doesn't!

0 Replies

@oristarA,

Quote:

That is the sense in which He pays our debt,
and suffers for us what He Himself need not suffer
at all.'

Third person present tense verbs, with both semi-modal and lexical verbs, inflect with an 's'.

He likes/she wants/it needs/she runs/he walks/it jumps/...

When we negate the third person present verb, Ori, do we still inflect the verbs?

He doesn't needs/she doesn't likes/it doesn't rains

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

our Chinaman here

Isn't this rather like calling a black person a 'darky' or worse? (i.e. offensive)

1 Reply

Should "need" here be "needs"?

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