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Do you think that this is tolerable?

"He said he would punish me if I didn't be quiet"


By "tolerable" I mean "How much does it make you wince?" not "Is it right?" and:

"I'll punish you if you don't be quiet"

?

I think it's an echo of "Don't be ____!", which makes us drop our guard a little.

Seems to me to be more of an inconsistency (flaw) of English than a mistake on the part of the speaker. It's perfectly correct as reported speech, but a correction mechanism should have kicked in and prevented the original mistake, "I'll punish you if you don't be quiet".

You could tell the speaker that one cannot use the imperative mood in a dependent clause, but people do. And I think you're right. This "error" is a directly related to the negative imperative form, e.g. "Don't be stupid", etc. The speaker is adding emphasis to his or her warning by using the imperative form in a subordinate clause, and I suspect it might be common and acceptable to do so in some other languages, just not English.

You would normally edit an off sentence in reported speech I suppose (and the original is off, as Ouyang says).

I like this idea that a wince test can get around this whole "wrong" problem.

I fear not. However, if you would be so kind as to give a wince factor for "obtained to be" in my thread below Juan then I promise to sully your threads no more for all time.

JuanTwoThree wrote:Do you think that this is tolerable?

"He said he would punish me if I didn't be quiet"

Actually I think it's tolerable. This has made me think a bit, but I feel it's the type of thing you perhaps could hear in certain dialects of English, and I'm not just talking about World Englishes. Maybe you could here it in certain parts of Canada or Australia, for example. Talking about wincing, I remember reading that somewhere Australian English was referred to as the "Colonial Cringe". I guess it's not the Queen's English, but I honestly don't think I would think twice if I heard someone say that in a conversation.

I'm confused. Sounds 100% okay to me... Why would it make anyone wince?











(I'm an Aussie)

"He said he would punish me if I wasn't quiet/didn't quieten down" slips down the average British gullet better, for example.

You really don't find that at all preferable?

The point I keep trying to make about the wincing thing is that as long as there is the slightest suggestion of that "wince" then it is "wrong", because you yourself are not going to use/propagate it, and thus in one sense at least a vivid red line is always drawn. On language log they flatulently speak of "infelicity" but it all works out the same.

Oh, I promised here not to post on Juan's threads come to think of it. Well, if he really does mind, he can personal mail me and tell me he will punish me if I don't stop it, and I shall obey.