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Man 1: We need to do something.

Man 2: What do you want us to do? We can't do anything.

Is the emboldened response/question natural and does using "us" include Man 1? If not, would "What do you want we should do?" work better to include both of them?

user134579
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    "What do you want we should do?" is not idiomatic in most varieties of English - see https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/258015/why-doesnt-that-clause-come-after-want/282372#282372 ). ("Want" generally doesn't take a clause as its object.) – rjpond May 25 '21 at 16:25
  • @rjpond, as your linked answer mentions, "what do you want [someone] **should do**" would not sound strange to me—my grandparents were both second-generation Eastern European Jewish immigrants. It would sound *deliberately* Yiddish but it wouldn't sound wrong. Other uses that don't use "to do" as the following verb would not sound as natural. – randomhead May 25 '21 at 20:38
  • @randomhead That's fair enough. That's why I said "most" and "generally" and linked to to my answer. It's interesting though. I didn't know that "to do" being the following verb made a difference. Thanks. – rjpond May 25 '21 at 20:42

1 Answers1

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In this exchange

Man 1: We need to do something.

Man 2: What do you want us to do? We can't do anything.

Man 1 uses 'we', so 'us' probably includes Man 2. If Man 1 had used 'You', then maybe 'us' includes the unmentioned Man 3 to man N. Much depends on context.

'What [do] you want I should do?' is stereotypical of New York Jewish speech (possibly derived from a Yiddish speech pattern). I have heard it described as a a calque (loan translation) of the German du willst dass ich soll and of the Yiddish וועלן איך זאָלן/veln ikh zoln.

Michael Harvey
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  • To add, "What do you want [person] should do" sounds like natural Yinglish to me, not necessarily dated at all. I would say that only "should do" is natural in this construction; other verbs would not be. – randomhead May 25 '21 at 20:40
  • Agreed, but I think it's a moot point whether 'Yinglish' is a language, or even a dialect . I have heard it described as 'English characterized by a lot of Yiddish loanwords', but I don't see any loan words in 'What you want [person] should do?'. You want we should discuss Yeshivish? – Michael Harvey May 25 '21 at 20:45