English is getting modern

Recently I learn about the difference between the following two sentences:

(a) He hasn't any ideas.
(b) He doesn't have any ideas.

According to Geoffrey Leech and others, sentence (a) is an old way of asking a question while (b) is more common these days. That means both sentences are correct grammatically. As indicated in sentence (b), nowadays people prefer using the the word 'do' (grammatically called 'operator') by putting it before 'have' to form a question. They also explain that 'operator' in grammar is the first auxiliary verb in a finite verb phrase.

When I started learning English many years ago, I was taught to use sentence (a). In order to be in fashion, I think I should start using sentence (b). Time has changed, so does grammar in English.

Reference:
1. Geoffrey Leech et al . An A-Z of English Grammar & Usage. Longman, 2001.
2. Geoffrey Leech et al. English Grammar for To-day. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

英語用字

每個英文詞彙都有符號象徵(denotation)和隱含意義(connotation). 隱含意義可以帶出不同感覺,態度,意見. 例如 soldier/warrior, 或者insect/bug, 或者 illness/disease/ailment/condition, 又或者fat/obese/plump/portly/stout/substantial.

文字可以反映使用者的身分,性別,社會地位,種族或者環境場合. 以前英語來源可以反映使用者的身分背景, 因為英文來源可以是拉丁語, 法國語等. 而在不同時代, 所用字彙代表著使用者的社會地位. 例如名詞 fire/flame/conflagration, 或者 fear/terror/trepidation 又或者動詞 rise/mount/ascent. 基本上從字彙可以猜出使用者是來自上流社會或草根階層.

在現代社會, 當運用英語時, 在不同場合, 能恰當地挑選出適當的字去表達自己, 我認為是英語高手的其中一個標記.

Reference: Laurel J. Briton. The Structure of Modern English. John Benjamins Publishing Company: Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2000.

English Grammar

On Wednesday 15th October Hong Kong's chief executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen delivered his policy address. During that policy address, he took a few seconds to comment on the sentence " Bow Tie Keep Your Election Promise", suggesting that one 's' should be added to the end of the word 'Keep'. According to my understanding, in this is sentence, the verb form is called 'imperative' in grammar. There are two types of 'imperatives'. Affirmative imperatives have the same form as the infinitive without to, while negative imperatives use do not plus infinitive. One example of imperative sentence is 'Enjoy your holiday', or 'Have some more tea'. The imperative sentence does not necessarily have a subject, but we can add one to it for the sake of clarity. For example 'Mary come here.', or 'Bow Tie come here.', or 'Bow Tie shut up.', or 'Bow Tie Keep Your Election Promise.' All these sentences are perfectly correct grammatically.

Reference
Michael Swan. Practical English Usage. Oxford University Press, 2002.