Which of the followings is correct?
1) why you did not drink that juice?
2) why did not you drink that juice?
I think both of them are correct but I don't know which one is more formal! Any further explanations will be appreciated. :)
asked Oct 16, 2015 at 15:30
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5Possible related question "How it works?" vs. "How does it work?"– StoneyB on hiatusOct 16, 2015 at 15:56
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1@VictorBazarov: I think both of them are correct! :) but just one of them should be formal.– Hosein RahnamaOct 16, 2015 at 16:07
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2No, that's wrong: #2 is completely ungrammatical, and cannot occur in English. However, the contracted form is legal; only the uncontracted one is illegal.– tchristOct 16, 2015 at 16:20
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2OK, for god sake! :D I am not an expert! I am just a learner! I really don't make any difference between words like true and right, wrong or false! :D– Hosein RahnamaOct 16, 2015 at 16:47
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2@H.R. - on ELL, right and wrong often refer to grammatical constructs. For example, I can say, The biggest ocean in the world is the Atlantic Ocean. Grammatically, that's correct, but factually, it's false. I can also say, Pacific Ocean is biggest ocean in world. Factually, that's true, but grammatically, the sentence is written wrong – it definitely needs some definite articles. So true and false refer to the accuracy of the statement, while right and wrong refer to how it's structured.– J.R. ♦Oct 17, 2015 at 10:49
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1 Answer
Neither of the given examples is actually correct (they are both ungrammatical in modern English). The phrase should be either:
Why did you not drink that juice?
or
Why didn't you drink that juice?
The first one ("did you not") is the more formal of the two; the contracted form ("didn't you") is much more likely to be heard in conversation.
This has been covered in ELU under the answer to this question: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/8372/do-you-not-vs-dont-you
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2Generally speaking contractions are avoided in formal writing. So you wouldn't normally use "didn't", for the same reason that you'd avoid "can't", "you're", "wouldn't", etc.– Jez WOct 16, 2015 at 16:29
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@H.R. Note that we don't usually have occasion to ask questions like "Why didn't you drink that juice?" in formal writing. Oct 16, 2015 at 16:31
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1@Jez - I wouldn't say contractions are "generally avoided" in formal writing; I'd say that that are "used more judiciously" in formal writing. See here and here for more thoughts on this. YD says: many experts caution against the use of contractions in formal communication. However, this rule does have some flexibility. Even in formal writing, I'd use "Why didn't you" here.– J.R. ♦Oct 17, 2015 at 11:03