# Have you no shame?



## Alex_Tang

Context: “Have you no shame?” Biden decries republican attack on voting rights
Copied from original title. Cagey, moderator 

Why the expression “Have you no shame?” is correct and authentic?
Should it be “ Do you have no shame?” though I understand that the tone is much softer this way.
I’d appreciate it if you could offer me some clues.


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## elroy

It's a frozen expression using archaic syntax.


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## S1m0n

It is straightforward inversion the subject and verb to create a question. This is common, and not in the least archaic.


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## elroy

S1m0n said:


> This is common, and not in the least archaic.


I'm afraid that's wrong on both counts, Sir. 
In modern English, 99% of the time we need to insert "do."  We don't say "Play you basketball?"; we say "Do you play basketball?"
"Have" is used as a main verb here, not as a helping verb.  We don't say "Have you any brothers?"; we say "Do you have any brothers?" (but we do say "Have you seen the movie?", because "have" is a helping verb there).


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## Alex_Tang

elroy said:


> It's a frozen expression using archaic syntax.


Thanks. Just to be sure, does it mean that people don’t normally say “Have you no gut/courage/ faith…” And it’s only acceptable to say “ Have you no shame” ?

It suddenly occurred to me that I have heard of the expression before. I thought it was “ Have you known no shame?” Hahaha. Thanks again.


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## elroy

Alex_Tang said:


> Thanks. Just to be sure, does it mean that people don’t normally say “Have you no gut/courage/ faith…” And it’s only acceptable to say “ Have you no shame” ?


I have personally only heard it with "shame."


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## Alex_Tang

S1m0n said:


> It is straightforward inversion the subject and verb to create a question. This is common, and not in the least archaic.


Thanks for the clue. I will look it up.


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## natkretep

The fronting of the lexical verb _have_ is found in older speakers of BrE. I'm told, it's also fine in Irish English. You'll probably know the old nursery rhyme: 'Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?' So _have_ has been transitioning from being used like _be_ which can be used in interrogatives and negatives without the _do_ operator.

'Have you any brothers?' would be unusual for me. But 'Have you got any brothers?' is ordinary - but grammatically _have_ is now an auxiliary verb rather than a full verb. I can also say things like 'I haven't a clue' (rather than 'I don't have a clue').


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## Ellieanne

S1m0n said:


> It is straightforward inversion the subject and verb to create a question. This is common, and not in the least archaic.



But using the verb ‘to have’ in this way does sound old-fashioned. For example, I would never say ‘have you a lot of friends?’ or ‘Have you a car?’ 

It’s much more normal to say ‘Do you have...’ or ‘Have you got...’


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## boozer

Well, I agree that calling it 'archaic' is a bit too much. Personally, I find it old-fashioned (as Ellieanne says) but when I was a child examples like 'Have you any brothers?' could be found aplenty in school textbooks.


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## Ömür Tokman

have-have got is a bit of a long topic, a bit like a rule and a bit like personal preference.

You should try this place.
I have got / have


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## Şafak

Ömür Tokman said:


> have-have got is a bit of a long topic, a bit like a rule and a bit like personal preference.
> 
> You should try this place.
> I have got / have


There's nothing wrong with " I have got a car" and "I have a car" or "Have you got a car?" and "Do you have a car?".
But *this thread is about using "Have you + noun?"*, not "have you got + noun?".


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## manfy

elroy said:


> I have personally only heard it with "shame."


_Have you no sense of <one of various human properties>? _can be heard fairly often, too - with 'have you no sense of decency?' being one of the more frequent ones.

This syntax adds quite some punch to the statement and conveys the speaker's outrage.


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## S1m0n

"Have you no sense of decency?" is quite famously the question that broke the spell of Joe McCarthy, and is quite likely the inspiration for the Biden quote.


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## Uncle Jack

natkretep said:


> The fronting of the lexical verb _have_ is found in older speakers of BrE.


I agree. "Have you a car?" sounds to me an ordinary question to ask.

Even "Have you no...?" is fine with a plural or uncountable noun, but it sounds odd to me with a singular noun, so I would not ask "Have you no car?", and of course "Have you no cars?" only works in a situation where the other person is expected to have more than one. For singular countable nouns, the form is "Haven't you a car?"


S1m0n said:


> "Have you no sense of decency?" is quite famously the question that broke the spell of Joe McCarthy, and is quite likely the inspiration for the Biden quote.


"Have you no shame?" is a fixed expression. We in Britain know very little of Joe McCarthy, and in any case "Have you no shame?" clearly predates it. Here is an Ngram (you cannot search for more than five words): Google Books Ngram Viewer


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## S1m0n

True enough, but Biden is an American and a long-term senator. This is one of the most famous lines ever uttered in the senate.


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## Ömür Tokman

I'm starting to like this forum, I'm learning something new every day.
knowledge is gold!



Uncle Jack said:


> the form is "Haven't you a car?"



Thanks @Uncle Jack .


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## Uncle Jack

Ömür Tokman said:


> Thanks @Uncle Jack .


Be warned, though. Natkretep said "older speakers of BrE", and he is right. I happily use these forms because I grew up with them, but they aren't used in every situation, and younger speakers probably don't use them at all. It is far, far safer to stick with using "do" as an auxiliary verb.

As an example, "Haven't you a car?" would only be used when you want to convey your surprise at what the other person has just said (which implies that they don't have a car). "Don't you have a car?" is the ordinary way of confirming that the other person does not have a car. "Don't you have a car?" can always be used in place of "Haven't you a car?", but "Haven't you a car?" cannot always be used in place of "Don't you have a car?"


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## S1m0n

Do not be mislead: this is not the sort of grammar that's so outdated that younger or less educated speakers don't understand it. Any native speaker with a grade 8 education will understand what's being said, even if it's not something they, themselves, often say. Biden expected that everyone in America would understand him, and he was not wrong in making that assumption.
There is a political faction in the USA that is eager to portray Biden as senile, or is someone who says outdated sayings. There hasn't been a hint of that with regard to this statement. I am surprised that our BrE speakers seem to feel that this is old-fashioned grammar, but clearly, the right wing US press does not agree. None of them saw anything unusual in it. If they'd seen an opportunity to claim that Biden is out of touch, they'd have taken it.


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## Uncle Jack

S1m0n said:


> Do not be mislead: this is not the sort of grammar that's so outdated that younger or less educated speakers don't understand it. Any native speaker with a high school education will understand what's being said, even if it's not something they, themselves, often say. Biden expected that everyone in America would understand him, and he was not wrong in making that assumption.
> There is a political faction in the USA that is eager to portray Biden as senile, or is someone who says outdated sayings. There hasn't been a hint of that with regard to this statement. I am surprised that our BrE speakers seem to feel that this is old-fashioned grammar, but clearly, the right wing US press does not agree. None of them saw anything unusual in it. If they'd seen an opportunity to claim that Biden is out of touch, they'd have taken it.


But "Have you no shame?" is a fixed expression, and is still current. I cannot really imagine anyone saying "Don't you have any shame?" If a speaker wanted to use more ordinary language, they would have changed the sentence entirely.

However, how many people would ask "Have you no sugar?" I would, but I suspect that I am in a minority, even in Britain. I have no idea whether it is used in the US or Canada.


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## S1m0n

You're missing the distinction I draw between active and passive lexicon. The people you speak to who don't often say such sentences themselves understand you when you say it to them. When you ask, 'have you any sugar?" they have no trouble understanding your meaning. Even if that's not a structure they use often with their friends. They have seen it in print, and heard it from people of your generation.

I think that it is wrong to characterise this inversion as 'archaic'. This is something that anyone who wants fluency in English will encounter, and will have to be able to interpret. It might be having diminishing currency is everyday speech, but it will have a long tail in both contemporary and historical writing, and in saying and expressions which are still current.


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## elroy

The _syntax_ is archaic in US English.  To my knowledge, no US English speaker of any age would say “Have you any brothers?”  Whether this would be _understood_ is beside the point. Lots of archaic things might be understood. What is misleading is to give non-native speakers the impression that they can casually use this structure without sticking out, which is not true. “Have you no shame?” is a fixed expression, and there may be a handful of others like it, but the syntax should not be generalized: 99% of the time it’s “do you have” or “don’t you have” or “do you not have.”

Another example of archaic syntax is “I kid you not.”  That’s used as a fixed expression, but we don’t say “I like him not” or “He annoys me not.”  The existence of one (or a small number of) surviving uses of archaic syntax does not make it any less archaic.


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## S1m0n

elroy said:


> Whether this would be _understood_ is beside the point.


No. That _is _the point for a learner of English. They need to understand and be able to interpret this syntax, because they will encounter it, and it is not difficult to understand. I daresay that Uncle Jack can walk into any shop in the UK and ask 'have you any sugar' and be understood by a teenage clerk, providing that clerk is a native speaker. I can certainly do that in Canada, and I expect you can also in the USA. Biden could speak to the nation, and likewise assume correctly that everyone would understand him.

Archaic is an _extreme_ term. It doesn't merely mean that this is unfashionable, or of diminishing currency. It means that this form of speech is no longer a part of the language, and will no longer be understood by the general population. That is not the case for this syntax. This is still good English grammar; firmly a part of the language.


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## boozer

S1m0n said:


> Archaic is an _extreme_ term.



I agree. Not even the syntax can be said to be archaic when the verb is 'have'. Old-fashioned is fine.

As for archaic, I just love it when Montrose says this in 'Rob Roy', the 1995 film:
_"Know you the Duke of Argyll?"_
Love the tone and love the grammar. And yes, archaic it is.


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## sound shift

Uncle Jack said:


> I cannot really imagine anyone saying "Don't you have any shame?"


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## zaffy

boozer said:


> Well, I agree that calling it 'archaic' is a bit too much. Personally, I find it old-fashioned (as Ellieanne says) but when I was a child examples like '*Have you any brothers?' could be found aplenty in school textbooks.*



Today, if you use that syntax in a test/exam, it will be considered a mistake.


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## S1m0n

boozer said:


> As for archaic, I just love it when Montrose says this in 'Rob Roy', the 1995 film:
> _"Know you the Duke of Argyll?"_


That's a screenwriter speaking forsoothly.


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## elroy

S1m0n said:


> That _is _the point for a learner of English.


There is no single "point" for every "learner of English."  Each learner of English has their own needs.  When I said it's beside the point, I meant it's not the point of this thread.  The OP's question was:


Alex_Tang said:


> Why the expression “Have you no shame?” is correct and authentic?


Clearly, they know that 99% of the time we use "do" (or "don't"), so they are wondering why this sentence is valid.  The answer is, as I said, that it is archaic syntax that has only survived in fixed expressions.  It used to be current, but with the exception of fixed expressions, it no longer is.  Structures rarely die out 100%, so we often still see remnants in the modern language, but these are still archaic.


S1m0n said:


> Archaic is an _extreme_ term.


No, it's not.  It just means that it's no longer current.  It doesn't mean you'll _never ever _encounter it or that people would not understand it.  Neither of these are part of the definition of "archaic."  Native speakers sometimes deliberately pepper their speech with archaic uses, just as poets deploy poetic license and use structures they wouldn't use otherwise.  That archaic structures are sometimes used doesn't make them any less archaic.


S1m0n said:


> It means that this form of speech is no longer a part of the language, and will no longer be understood by the general population.


The first part is more or less true: it's no longer part of the language except for at most a handful of frozen expressions.
The second part is not part of the definition of "archaic"; I don't know where you got that from.  "archaic" doesn't mean people don't understand it.


S1m0n said:


> This is still good English grammar; firmly a part of the language.


Whether it's "good" grammar depends on what you mean by "good."  If I were correcting an essay written in modern English and saw "Have you a solution to this problem?" I would 100% edit that.

I disagree that it is "firmly" part of the language, when it's only used 1% of the time or less.


S1m0n said:


> They need to understand and be able to interpret this syntax, because they will encounter it, and it is not difficult to understand.


They are extremely unlikely to encounter it (and if they do, it will most likely be a very small number of instances), and again, whether or not it's difficult to understand is beside the point.
In any event, my description of it as archaic doesn't stand in the way of a learner's ability to understand the syntax.  They can examine, and try to understand, the syntax while being aware that it's archaic.  The two are not mutually exclusive.


S1m0n said:


> I daresay that Uncle Jack can walk into any shop in the UK and ask 'have you any sugar' and be understood by a teenage clerk, providing that clerk is a native speaker. I can certainly do that in Canada, and I expect you can also in the USA.


I don't know about the UK.  In terms of the US (and probably Canada), these sound like hypothetical scenarios.  I certainly would never say it, and I suspect you wouldn't either.


S1m0n said:


> Biden could speak to the nation, and likewise assume correctly that everyone would understand him.


Biden used the frozen expression "Have you no shame?"  We can't generalize from that and make it seem like the structure in itself is current or common.  That's simply not true.


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## zaffy

Well, I came across this. "Have you no modesty?" I do realise this is Shakespeare language, but does it work today?


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## zaffy

Other examples of "Have you no...?" Perhaps it sounds more dramatic?


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## elroy

Yes, as I said, native speakers sometimes borrow archaic structures and embed them into their speech.  Language is complex, and the possibilities are boundless.  These occasional uses do not make the structure any less archaic.


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## S1m0n

Everyone would understand it. Some Shakespearean language is now difficult to interpret. This is not. Any native speaker will understand this.


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## S1m0n

We'll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of 'archaic'.


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## zaffy

And does perhaps "Have you no....?" work well with "sense" even today? I came across quite a few examples. Another one


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## S1m0n

elroy said:


> Yes, as I said, native speakers sometimes borrow archaic structures and embed them into their speech.  Language is complex, and the possibilities are boundless.  These occasional uses do not make the structure any less archaic.


In other words, this is still a productive part of the English language. Which is my point. If it was truly archaic, this would produce only incomprehension.
The SF writer Roger Zelazny once published a short story in which a character was introduced by the narrator with the expression "Anderson yclept'*. The meaning, which I learned years later when studying middle English, is "named Anderson". _That _is archaic English: something so obscure that a _very_ bookish teenager couldn't interpret it and had never heard it.

_*"You  sure you want to do this?" asked the sunburnt little gink who was
her publicity man, Anderson yclept."_


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## S1m0n

zaffy said:


> And does perhaps "Have you no....?" work well with "sense" even today? I came across quite a few examples. Another one
> 
> View attachment 59305


That's the famous US senate quote that I discussed earlier, and which likely influenced Biden's statement.


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## zaffy

Have you no shame?
Have you no decency?
Have you no modesty?
Have you no respect for..?
Have you no sense of...?

Looks like that syntax works and sounds well when criticizing, doesn't it? Or would you still recommend it only for the fixed "Have you no shame?" phrase?


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## elroy

S1m0n said:


> Everyone would understand it. Some Shakespearean language is now difficult to interpret. This is not. Any native speaker will understand this.


So some archaic structures are easier to understand than others.  Sure.  I don't disagree with that.


S1m0n said:


> We'll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of 'archaic'.


I am more than willing to modify my definition of it if it needs modifying.  I have presented my understanding of the term, as a language user and a linguist.  If you or anyone else has definitions or other evidence to share in support of an alternate definition, I will consider all of it seriously and, as I said, adjust my definition if necessary.

I have never understood "archaic" to have anything to do with whether you can understand something, but with whether it's still in current use.  In other words, for me the label "archaic" is about _active_ use, not _passive_ understanding.


S1m0n said:


> In other words, this is still a productive part of the English language. Which is my point.


Actually, "productive" is precisely what I am saying it is not.  "productive" has a specific meaning in linguistics, and this is a textbook example of a _non-productive_ use.  My point in mentioning occasional uses was to recognize that non-productive does not mean 100% non-existent -- not to suggest that this use is productive.

"productive" in linguistics means that you can take a pattern and apply it pretty much indiscriminately and, save for at most a small number of exceptions, pretty much be guaranteed to always be using something idiomatic and acceptable.  A usage or pattern that has limits to its applicability is still non-productive, even if it's not completely non-existent.

If you learn, for example, that to negate a simple positive declarative statement like "I like roses," you add "do not" before the verb (and drop the third person singular -s if applicable), you can apply that pattern to most/all other sentences of that type and produce, for example, "I do not play tennis," "I do not drink coffee," and "I do not live in Chicago" and not have to worry about sounding unusual or awkward.

The same cannot be said of "Have you no shame?"  It would be dangerous for me to teach that to a learner as a productive pattern, leaving them with the impression that applying this pattern indiscriminately would not be unusual or awkward most of the time.  If they take this pattern and run away with it, producing "Have you a pencil sharpener I can borrow?", "Have you knowledge of this computer program?", or "Have you the time?", they are going to stick out and sound decidedly unidiomatic, even if the person understands what they mean.


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## S1m0n

Exactly. This is productive syntax, existing in far more than a small number of historical expressions.


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## elroy

S1m0n said:


> far more than a small number of historical expressions


"far more" sounds vastly overstated to me.


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## S1m0n

A grammatical structure which embeds some ancient grammatical structure typically has one, or at most two or three variants. Zaffy has just posted half a dozen contrary examples, and there are many more. "Far more' is entirely warranted. People are still using this syntax and creating new expressions from it.


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## elroy

S1m0n said:


> there are many more. "Far more' is entirely warranted.


It's easy to make such broad claims without backing them up.
My experience with the language, and I daresay that of most other users, is entirely at odds with these claims.
I have presented a detailed analysis of the phenomenon under discussion and fully accounted, without compromising the soundness of my analysis, for the occasional uses whose significance you are inflating and misrepresenting.
My hope is that non-native speakers who read this thread draw the right conclusions.


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## S1m0n

You have already conceded that people are using this syntax to produce novel expressions. I am mystified why you continue to claim that this is 'non-productive'. Clearly, it is not.


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## Myridon

S1m0n said:


> We'll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of 'archaic'.


American speakers only know it from fixed expressions, Shakespeare, etc.  In British English, you still know it from Uncle Jack saying, "Have you any sugar?"  If someone asked me that, I couldn't stop myself from saying, "Yes sir! Yes sir! Three bags full."


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## elroy

I've addressed that:


elroy said:


> A usage or pattern that has limits to its applicability is still non-productive, even if it's not completely non-existent.


Also:


S1m0n said:


> You have already conceded that people are using this syntax to produce novel expressions.


To be clear:
What I mean is that _occasionally_ (very rarely) native speakers (mostly consciously) _borrow_ archaic structures, often _for a specific purpose or effect.  _Again, this is very comparable to poetic license.  It's a possibility the language offers, but it's a far cry from normative, generalized, or unremarkable usage that can be described as "common," "productive," or "a firm part of the language."

I might jokingly say to you, when asking you what you'd like to drink, "What desirest thou to quaff this fine morn?"  By your logic, the fact that I can say this in 2021 and that you would understand it means that "thou" is not archaic.


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## S1m0n

That is belied by all of zaffy's examples. Native American speakers have no trouble interpreting a wide range of varied expressions, all of which 1) they have never heard before, and 2) employ this syntax.
I could stop any American in the street and ask them 'Have you no empathy/sympathy/determination/optimism/fear/disgust/lobsters/milk/etc. and they will all understand what I mean. I picked these words at close to random. Not one of those is a set phrase. Every one is understandable.


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## boozer

I am trying to remember a rule guideline that I am almost certain I must have been taught once. I never went by those rules and I never memorised them, but still, I have a feeling it said that when 'have' is used in its core meaning (possess) you may form questions by inverting the word order, without adding an auxiliary 'do'. British English, definitely.

Now, this 'rule' must have been current around the time I was born (our books were always dated) and people like Uncle Jack say they still use such expressions. I do sometimes, too, and I have been told I am old-fashioned. I can accept old-fashioned, but archaic seems to suggest 'out-of-date for centuries'.


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## elroy

You can take the specific string "Have you no [XXX]?" and plug in abstract nouns that fall into the same semantic domain as "shame" in the relevant meaning: desirable human qualities or traits many believe people "should" have (I'm assuming by "disgust" you mean "disgust towards something unacceptable").  These are innovative extensions of the fixed expression "Have you no shame?"  One would not (ordinarily) say "Have you no excitement/fatigue/annoyance?" or "Have you no apples/carpets/toys?"

Again, a textbook example of a non-productive usage.


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## Korisnik116

One fixed pattern does not Present-day syntax make.

(To be fair, this still exists in British English, but even there it's considered old-fashioned/formal.)


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## elroy

It seems that in British English it may only be old-fashioned.  In US English, I maintain that it's archaic, and I've seen nothing in this thread that has convinced me otherwise. 


Korisnik116 said:


> One fixed pattern does not Present-day syntax make.


Beautiful!


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## abluter

With the greatest respect to Elroy, there is *nothing* archaic or "frozen" about this term, in Britain at least.  It, and others like it, are in very common use in UK, and it is not regarded as literary, arch or in any way affected.


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## S1m0n

elroy said:


> You can take the specific string "Have you no [XXX]?" and plug in abstract nouns that fall into the same semantic domain as "shame" in the relevant meaning: desirable human qualities or traits many believe people "should" have (I'm assuming by "disgust" you mean "disgust towards something unacceptable").


Yes. And so can anyone else. And when they or you do, _everyone_ will understand it, because this is an ordinary part of the language.


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## S1m0n

You have a false understanding of the word 'archaic'.


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## S1m0n

You do not seem convincable.


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## Şafak

S1m0n said:


> You have a false understanding of the word 'archaic'.


What’s the meaning then? Archaic means that something was common in the past, but now it’s rare. This is exactly what elroy is saying.


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## elroy

abluter said:


> With the greatest respect to Elroy, there is *nothing* archaic or "frozen" about this term, in Britain at least.  It, and others like it, are in very common use in UK, and it is not regarded as literary, arch or in any way affected.


I am far from an authority on British English.  I can only speak for my experience with US English.  However, my overall impression is that what you say here is not representative of British English as a whole.  It certainly seems to be the case that on the spectrum from "fully archaic" to "fully modern," British English is closer to the "fully modern" end, but your description seems overstated.


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## elroy

S1m0n said:


> Yes. And so can anyone else. And when they or you do, _everyone_ will understand it, because this is an ordinary part of the language.


I have already addressed all of this, so I won't repeat myself. 


S1m0n said:


> You have a false understanding of the word 'archaic'.


My understanding is supported by dictionaries:

Google:​​(of a word or a style of language) no longer in everyday use but sometimes used to impart an old-fashioned flavor.​​Merriam-Webster:​​having the characteristics of the language of the past and surviving chiefly in specialized uses​NOTE: In this dictionary the label _archaic_ is affixed to words and senses relatively common in earlier times but infrequently used in present-day English.​​Collins:​​(of idiom, vocabulary, etc) characteristic of an earlier period of a language and not in ordinary use​
I've found nothing about intelligibility.



S1m0n said:


> You do not seem convincable.


No, not to worry.  You just haven't convinced me.


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## abluter

Some examples common in England : Have you no sense of decency? Have you no shrimps today? Have you no sense of humour? Have you no small change? Have you no sense of direction?          
And there are plenty more. 
Maybe it's the rather old-fashioned concept of shame that is responsible for the difficulty here.


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## elroy

abluter said:


> Have you no sense of decency? Have you no shrimps today? Have you no sense of humour? Have you no small change? Have you no sense of direction?


Are these in common use across all age groups?  Would they be perceived as completely ordinary and unremarkable by all listeners?  


abluter said:


> Maybe it's the rather old-fashioned concept of shame that is responsible for the difficulty here.


I don’t think that’s the case in US English.  I don’t think even an 80-year-old speaker of US English would say “Have you no milk?”


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## abluter

Perhaps it's another case of the hoary old AmE/BrE divergence.
As for age groups, I have little idea of how teenagers speak, except that I often don't like what I hear.  But I am quite sure that these examples "have you no . . ." are immediately understood by all.


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## Tegs

I'm pretty sure "Have you any X?" is pretty normal in Ireland. It certainly doesn't strike me as old fashioned.  "Have you any brothers?" is by no means a weird sentence to me, although it sounds like this is not used much in the UK or the US.


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## elroy

abluter said:


> I am quite sure that these examples "have you no . . ." are immediately understood by all.


To be clear, I asked about perception, not understanding.
As I've said a number of times, intelligibility for me is not a factor in determining whether something is archaic.


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## S1m0n

Tegs said:


> I'm pretty sure "Have you any X?" is pretty normal in Ireland. It certainly doesn't strike me as old fashioned.  "Have you any brothers?" is by no means a weird sentence to me, although it sounds like this is not used much in the UK or the US.


This has been valid English grammar since - at a minimum - Anglo-Saxon times. It still is, 1400 years later.
Given the presence on inversion = interrogation in other Indo-European languages, it's likely a lot older that that. Proto Germanic or Proto-Indo-European


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## abluter

Yes, Elroy, I take your point about the distinction between perception and comprehension. In Britain, you sometimes hear "Do you have any (shrimps, etc)?  That sounds to me a very American way to ask the question. That is my perception.  To an American, I guess, that would be perceived as the most usual and natural way to ask. (Incidentally, "Have you got any shrimps? would be the most common in UK, or "Haven't you got any etc?).  "Have you no etc?" is certainly less commonly heard, but that doesn't make it "archaic"!


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## Tegs

elroy said:


> intelligibility for me is not a factor in determining whether something is archaic.


Oh, I agree completely. There are plenty of very archaic things in books set, for example, in the Regency era. I understand them just fine but have never heard these things used by anyone living!


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## elroy

Everything that is archaic was valid at some point.
Whether it's valid today depends on what is meant by "valid."
As I said earlier, I would, at least 90% of the time, edit this structure in a text written in modern US English.  That said, the likelihood of a native speaker of US English using it to begin with is infinitesimal, since in modern US English its use is limited to frozen expressions and extensions of them, as well as rare innovative/creative uses akin to poetic license.


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## Alex_Tang

natkretep said:


> The fronting of the lexical verb _have_ is found in older speakers of BrE. I'm told, it's also fine in Irish English. You'll probably know the old nursery rhyme: 'Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?' So _have_ has been transitioning from being used like _be_ which can be used in interrogatives and negatives without the _do_ operator.
> 
> 'Have you any brothers?' would be unusual for me. But 'Have you got any brothers?' is ordinary - but grammatically _have_ is now an auxiliary verb rather than a full verb. I can also say things like 'I haven't a clue' (rather than 'I don't have a clue').


Thanks


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## Lis48

If I say "Have you no pen?", it conveys my disapproval in the same way as "Have you no shame?" I might say in a hotel "Have you no hairdryer?" to suggest my surprise and disappointment that the hotel has fallen below my expectations.
The sense is totally different to "Don't you have a pen?" or "Don't you have a hairdryer?"


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## Roxxxannne

I want to point out that it's highly unlikely that that Biden used to go to the corner store by his house in Scranton and see that there were no cans of Heinz beans on the shelf, turn to the man behind the counter and say "Have you no Heinz beans?"  

"Have you no X" is not a construction that ordinary people use to generate sentences in everyday current American speech. "Have you no shame?" is the only example I can recall hearing.  It's meaningful, but, as elroy said, the construction "have you no ..." is 'frozen' in the sense that it's only used (if I'm right) in "have you no shame?"

Biden used this particular sentence on purpose in order to emphasize righteous anger. He clearly has a range of English that he calls on to express irritation or anger ("Come on, man" being at the other end of the range, at least the printable range).  

This is just another difference between AmE and BrE.


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## kentix

Roxxxannne said:


> It's meaningful, but, as elroy said, the construction "have you no ..." is 'frozen' in the sense that it's only used (if I'm right) in "have you no shame?"


I don't think it's quite _that_ frozen. But it's definitely an oratorical device limited to use in the context of moral indignation, in my experience.

"Have you no sense of decency?"
"Have you no compassion?"
"Have you no sense of right and wrong?"

I think those are all fine and things I have heard now and then.

There is no true moral indignation involved in whether beans are in stock so that would not be an appropriate context in American English. We would handle that situation with a critical tone.

"Don't you have any beans?" (You're expected to have beans.)

Contrast this in a hopeful tone:
"You don't have any beans?" (I hope you do. I looked but I didn't see any.)


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## Roxxxannne

You're right.  I amend my answer above to say "'Have you no shame?' and equivalent statements expressing moral indignation."

My point about the beans (in addition to indicating that Heinz beans are originally an American product) was that Biden and other Americans in general don't say 'have you no ...' in ordinary speech.


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## natkretep

Just checking: I expect 'Haven't you any shame?' does not work for you then?


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## kentix

It works in the sense that it's totally understandable but I doubt you would hear it from American lips.


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## Uncle Jack

natkretep said:


> Just checking: I expect 'Haven't you any shame?' does not work for you then?


For what it's worth, it does not work for me either. This use of "shame" is unusual and tends only to be used in a couple of expressions: "be without shame" and "have no shame".

In more ordinary situations, we use "shameless".


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## Roxxxannne

natkretep said:


> Just checking: I expect 'Haven't you any shame?' does not work for you then?


I certainly understand it, but in the US I'd expect "don't you have any shame?" as an alternative to "have you no shame?"


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## Forero

"Have you no modesty?", for example, is something I might say, but "Do you have no modesty?" is not.


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