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Dearest English teachers,
are my sentences below acceptable?Many thanks in advance.
Don't you think the bus is always not on schedule?
Don't you think you are not young?

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Type: Question • Score: 5 • Views: 748 • Replies: 8

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View best answer, chosen by Loh Jane

They're acceptable, although i don't know that a native speaker would express those ideas that way.

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@Loh Jane,

Both of those sentences are awkward and will not sound right to native speakers.

The first sentence is unclear what you mean.

Is it

"Don't you think the bus is never on schedule?"

or

"Don't you think that the bus is sometimes late?"

Also for the second sentence, I think I would change "not young" to "old".

"Don't you think that you are old?"

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@Loh Jane,

Both sentences would pass on grammar but flunk on usage. Both would impress a native speaker sort of like being inside a trash can and having somebody hit the can with a baseball bat.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Also for the second sentence, I think I would change "not young" to "old".

"Don't you think that you are old?"

It looks a bit different to me. It sounds abrupt. A euphemism might be:

"Don't you think that you are young no more?"

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Hi all,
thank you.

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@Setanta,

Dearest Setanta,
If I forget the spelling of a word when writing a test essay,what should I do?

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@maxdancona,

Max, you have to expand your thinking a bit if you want to discuss language issues.

Oristar was able to recognize these not so common but fully grammatical and certainly possible collocations.

Remember what The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English says;

Quote:

... native speakers rarely have accurate perceptions of these differences [information about frequency of use of various structures]

When it comes to describing differences across registers, native-speaker intuition is even less reliable. ... most native speakers are not aware of the more pervasive differences in the use of core grammatical features.

Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English Biber et al page 8

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@Loh Jane,

Quote:

are my sentences below acceptable?Many thanks in advance.
Don't you think the bus is always not on schedule?
Don't you think you are not young?

They are PERFECTLY acceptable, Jane. They are uncommon because those structures are used to say some uncommon things.

But uncommon does not mean unacceptable for language has to be able to cover everything that anyone ever wants to say about anything at all.

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