Why don 愒 they help him?

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ESL forum > Ask for help > Why don 愒 they help him?

Why don 愒 they help him?

Why don 愒 they help him?

You are walking in the street and you see an old man on the other side stumble and fall to the ground. He tries to get up but he can 愒. Nobody is helping him.

You say "Why don 愒 they help him?"

This is not a suggestion like "Why doesn 愒 he take an aspirin?/Why don 愒 you go to the doctor?"

It 愀 something happening right now, when you 悲 normally use present continuous, not in the future, or regularly. Present continuous would be possible, but I think this usage would be more common.

I thought it 愀 because there is an inferred "...when people can see he needs help" and that the 掣hen � is influencing the tense? That 愀 probably completely wrong.

I was just preparing a powerpoint and I 惴 struggling a little to explain this :-))

Please put me out of my misery. :-)

1 Nov 2015

maryse pey�

Well, let 愀 take the GENERAL idea, the idea of some truth you have noticed several times, or maybe heard, or maybe both.

So as the general truth is that people don 愒 help it is a little bit like a habit, a bad and painful habit but a habit.

It was true in the past, it is true at the very moment you are speaking and it will be true in the future... So it it the simple present of "hatbit", of general truth.

May this explanation help you ?

Maryse.

1 Nov 2015

yanogator

I was thinking along the same lines as Maryse, so I think you 愉e going to have to use that. As she 愀 saying, it isn 愒 really a habit or general truth, but it has that feeling.

I agree with you that the present tense would definitely be possible, without sounding at all strange, and that the simple present is probably more common. Your thought about "when" wouldn 愒 change anything. Either tense would work with that extension, too.

Thinking about it a little more, I realize that we use "why don 愒/doesn 愒" in other similar situations. If you are waiting too long at the bus stop, you might say "Why doesn 愒 the bus come?", and it probably wouldn 愒 be difficult to find other examples.

Bruce

1 Nov 2015

Hi Maryse/Bruce,

Thank you. I think I can see what Maryse means but I just can愒 see it as a general truth/something always true, because the example is very specific and is tied very much to that moment. It愀 a single event, happening at this moment. It愀 not repeated and not a generalisation. I thought of other examples, as Bruce did, which work in a similar way but are maybe not as clear, for example:

It愀 a scandal! Why doesn愒 she resign?
Why doesn愒 someone switch off that alarm? (this one would sound a little strange in continuous)

But I think my first example is the best to focus on because it could also be continuous and it is clearly talking about an event in progress now.

But perhaps what Maryse said is right in that somehow although the event itself is not general, that we are comparing it to an inferred generalisation:

---> "Why don愒 they help him? (Isn愒 that what people normally do in this situation)?"

But surely there is a more straightforward rule at work here, right?

Is it, after all, a form of suggestion? Because you could say "They should help him!" and it would have almost the same meaning (in which case we have an 悶xcuse� for using simple present). It just feels like a genuine question expressing bewilderment rather than a suggested solution to me.

Tap

1 Nov 2015

It may be inferring a wish or desire, in the way that 掣hy won 愒 they help him? � is.

Just by the way, I think the most natural utterance in the situation would be 幃hy isn愒 anybody helping him?� As long as the bystanders are strangers, that is.

Edit: Mm, not sure 掣hy don愒 they help him?� works here. You would have to know the 愒hey�. What do you think? Just trying to help. Smile

Smile

But I agree, it愀 fairly standard usage.

寒oy, you lot! I惴 talking. Why don愒 you listen?�

1 Nov 2015

maryse pey�

Well, what about a simple present of evidence ? as it exists a present continuous to mean exasperation ?

- Oh ! No ! He is always playing the piano when I am here !!!

- Why don 愒 you tell him to stop ?

1 Nov 2015

67Englishteacher

This is all really interesting! I also agree with maryse 愀 feeling that it sounds like a comparison to a standard way to act in any similar situation (hence the idea of genericity triggering the simple present).

Thinking back about my linguistics classes, what I might add is that the simple present might work better than the continuous form because the speaker isn 愒 so much talking about the description of the event itself (the ongoing process of not helping) as about the opposition between helping and anything else. The point is: people can choose between a whole range of actions (including not helping) and the speaker is stating that the choice was a bad one IN RELATION TO the other possible options.

I don 愒 know if my explanation (which is more a guess/feeling than an explanation, really!) is clear. If it is, does it make sense to you???

1 Nov 2015

Jayho

Hi all

I have absolutely no idea however a bit of googling came up with this: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/218009/why-dont-you-with-be

You have to scroll down a bit to However, the construction 𢘛hy don 愒 you (just)� has another, slightly different meaning, too

Maybe it helps?

Cheers

Jayho

P.S. When I add a link in FF and then press the space bar, it it doesn愒 automatically hyperlink it like it does in IE11. Can I change this somehow?

1 Nov 2015

This is pretty hard and I really appreciate the input from everyone. I was kind of hoping someone would just say "Well of course, that 愀 the "Why don 愒 they" Grammar Rule no. 347 where you do X because of Y and Z". :-))

It 愀 definitely NOT a suggestion, is it? It 愀 not addressed to anybody and it feels rhetorical. It 愀 a comment, similar to "They could at least help him to get up!".

I believe we 愉e feeling our way to an answer but it 愀 hard to pin down and perhaps I don 愒 understand all the suggestions but somehow I think the answer might be in here if I combine what Maryse and 67 said. IF I understood those correctly....

Are we saying this:

People are walking past him.
There are multiple opportunities to help him, even in a few seconds.
No-one makes the choice to help him.
Therefore we are describing somehow 愉egular� events?

I liked this until I just wrote it down like that right now. Somehow it feels like a 惠ix�. I probably also misunderstood what Maryse and 67 were saying.

I think cunliffe and jayho愀 answers may be similar in that it may be a 愀pecial case� of an 悶xasperated wish�. But the only reference I have seen to that was in the post Jayho linked to and it feels like there ought to be a simpler explanation. I haven愒 found anything in my grammar books, even Greenbaum & Quirk! Like cunliffe, I also wondered about "Why won 愒 they help him?" which I think means "why do they refuse to help him?" It 愀 very similar, but is it the same?

I am leaning at the moment towards the possibility that it愀 somehow related to a conditional sentence: "Why don愒 they help him? If they help him, he will be all right". Or "If they don愒 help him, he will suffer"

Does that make any sense?

Also please jump in if I have misrepresented/misunderstood anything anyone said! :-)

2 Nov 2015

maryse pey�

I will not say at all you have misunderstood but rather that TRUTH has multiple sides and that sometimes it is difficult to give only 1 concrete rule - may I say scientifical ? - because there is part of human feeling in this explanation. And as it is well known, human feelings are difficult to be clearly defined because they are ABSTRACT ...

So when i meet this kind of wondering I make my students trying to explain in their OWN way how they understand AND FEEL the statement and point out the most logic part of their deductions.

2 Nov 2015

Could it have something to do with the "hypothetical" nature of the statement?

2 Nov 2015

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