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I wanted ask, "Did she know him or know of him?"

I ended up asking,

"Did she know him or she knew of him?"

The second sentence as it stands sounds wrong. If I want to salvage the second sentence I might say, " Did she know him or did she know of him?" However, I want to know whether the second sentence is colloquially correct or not because we say, "She knew of him?" I joined the two sentences [1) "Did she know him?" and (2)"She knew of him?"] using a conjunction (or). Are we allowed to write sentences like the one in block-quotes? If not, please explain why?

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  • You can't do that because you're mixing verb tenses in the same question. They have to be the same tense -- e.g. "Did she know him or know of him?" or "She knew him or she knew of him?"
    – FeliniusRex - gone
    Aug 2, 2021 at 15:12

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"Did she knew of him" is definitely wrong, so I'd expect "did she know him or she knew of him" to be wrong. However, "did she know him or just knew of him" sounds... alright.

I think at the end of the day, "know" is the right tense. The "she" in the second clause actually makes this sound quite weird.

"Did she know him or know of him" sounds correct.

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