1

Are these sentences correct?:

I haven’t got freckles and glasses.

She hasn’t got straight, blond hair and freckles.

He hasn't got glasses and freckles.

Can I use "and" with negative sentences with "haven’t got"/ "hasn’t got"?

Is it correct? Or should I use "or"?

2
  • First off, the punctuation is wrong. You need to use “” or ‘’ for quote marks in English.
    – James K
    Commented Jan 29, 2017 at 14:22
  • Can you help me?
    – user46036
    Commented Jan 29, 2017 at 14:42

3 Answers 3

0

In negative sentences you would usually use "or" rather than "and":

I don't like A or B.

I don't have A or B.

The exception is if "A and B" is a common expression to represent a single thing ("peanut butter and jelly" sandwiches, "rack-and-pinion" steering, "Abbot and Costello" comedy duo), or where you want to explicitly apply the negative to both together:

You can't have A or B (You can't have either A or B).

You can't have A and B. (You can have A, or you can have B, but you can't have both)

So in your examples, it would make more sense to use "or"

I haven't got freckles or glasses.

3

In english you can use both 'and' or 'or' depending on what you are saying.

'and':

1/ will probably appear in longer sentences which are compounded of some number of shorter sentences with a number of "don't"s, "didn't"s, etc...

2/ will appear if you are talking about something as a unit (as a one thing).

'or' will probably appear in sentences which are not compounded of while short sentences.

I'll use some examples to clarify what I mean:

I don't like apples or oranges but I'm fine with grapes.

Here 'oranges' is not part of a compounded sentence thus 'or' is used here naturally.

Now let's take a look how to change it to have 'and' present:

I don't like apples and I don't like oranges but grapes are fine.

As you can see now 'and' connects two independent sentences. While in the example before 'oranges' needed first part of the sentence to make sense ('I don't like').

Note: Of course you can have longer pieces of text put together with 'or' too as long as they are dependent.

Lastly, using 'and' to form a unified image:

I don't like apple and orange mixed juice but I'm fine with either apple or orange one separately.

Here I'm talking about a unit of apple and orange juice together while I can still have a different opinion about each of them.

Natives prefer or because it's shorter, unless you have a special reason to go a different way.

Lastly, I'd like to mention other possibilities which are commonly used:

I don't like either apples or oranges. I like neither apples nor oranges.

So your sentences would probably be better with just 'or' unless you are trying to express it as a unit as explained above.

This is what I was taught perhaps somebody can clarify it better.

-1

You use or in negative sentences.

6
  • So I can't use "and" in my examples?
    – user46036
    Commented Jan 29, 2017 at 15:43
  • As Vico Lemp's answer suggests, you can, but only in certain ways. Or tends to be more common. Commented Jan 29, 2017 at 15:45
  • What about my examples? Are they correct, natural?
    – user46036
    Commented Jan 29, 2017 at 15:50
  • In your examples, the first is okay with and, but the others should use or. Commented Jan 29, 2017 at 15:51
  • Even the last example? It's similar to the first one.
    – user46036
    Commented Jan 29, 2017 at 16:06

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