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Which of the followings is correct?

1) why you did not drink that juice?

2) why did not you drink that juice?

I think both of them are correct but I don't know which one is more formal! Any further explanations will be appreciated. :)

StoneyB on hiatus
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Hosein Rahnama
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  • Do you have your own guess? Perhaps based on your knowledge of how to ask questions in English... – Victor Bazarov Oct 16 '15 at 15:37
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    Possible related question ["How it works?" vs. "How does it work?"](http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/17778/how-it-works-vs-how-does-it-work) – StoneyB on hiatus Oct 16 '15 at 15:56
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    @VictorBazarov: I think both of them are correct! :) but just one of them should be formal. – Hosein Rahnama Oct 16 '15 at 16:07
  • In other words, one of them could be OK only *colloquially*. Which one? If you can figure that out, then the other one would be the "formal" one, right? – Victor Bazarov Oct 16 '15 at 16:09
  • Yeah! I think we use number (1) more frequently in conversations! :) – Hosein Rahnama Oct 16 '15 at 16:14
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    No, that's wrong: #2 is completely ungrammatical, and cannot occur in English. However, the contracted form is legal; only the uncontracted one is illegal. – tchrist Oct 16 '15 at 16:20
  • @StoneyB: I don't see that why the second option is false! – Hosein Rahnama Oct 16 '15 at 16:36
  • @H.R. The second version is not false, it’s wrong. That’s because *right* does **not** mean *true* — and *wrong* does **not** mean *false*. – tchrist Oct 16 '15 at 16:40
  • @H.R. It's just not idiomatic. The only "why" is "because we've been voting on it continuously for several hundred years and for the last two hundred years *Why DO not SUBJ VERB* has been voted out of office". – StoneyB on hiatus Oct 16 '15 at 16:40
  • @StoneyB: So it is true and formal to say: "why did you not drink that juice?" – Hosein Rahnama Oct 16 '15 at 16:43
  • It is formally acceptable (as tchrist tells you, we do not use *true* in this sense). – StoneyB on hiatus Oct 16 '15 at 16:45
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    OK, for god sake! :D I am not an expert! I am just a learner! I really don't make any difference between words like **true** and **right**, **wrong** or **false**! :D – Hosein Rahnama Oct 16 '15 at 16:47
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    A very good question. +1 as it helps learn that the contracted version (didn't) is okay. – Maulik V Oct 17 '15 at 04:25
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    @H.R. - on ELL, *right* and *wrong* often refer to grammatical constructs. For example, I can say, *The biggest ocean in the world is the Atlantic Ocean.* Grammatically, that's correct, but factually, it's false. I can also say, *Pacific Ocean is biggest ocean in world.* Factually, that's true, but grammatically, the sentence is written wrong – it definitely needs some definite articles. So **true** and **false** refer to the accuracy of the statement, while **right** and **wrong** refer to how it's structured. – J.R. Oct 17 '15 at 10:49

1 Answers1

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Neither of the given examples is actually correct (they are both ungrammatical in modern English). The phrase should be either:

Why did you not drink that juice?

or

Why didn't you drink that juice?

The first one ("did you not") is the more formal of the two; the contracted form ("didn't you") is much more likely to be heard in conversation.

This has been covered in ELU under the answer to this question: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/8372/do-you-not-vs-dont-you

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Jez W
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    do we use " **didn't** " in formal writing? – Hosein Rahnama Oct 16 '15 at 16:27
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    Generally speaking contractions are avoided in formal writing. So you wouldn't normally use "didn't", for the same reason that you'd avoid "can't", "you're", "wouldn't", etc. – Jez W Oct 16 '15 at 16:29
  • Are you sure about my both options being false? :) – Hosein Rahnama Oct 16 '15 at 16:30
  • @H.R. Note that we don't usually have occasion to ask questions like "Why didn't you drink that juice?" in formal writing. – StoneyB on hiatus Oct 16 '15 at 16:31
  • @H.R. Neither of your alternatives is correct in standard English. – Damkerng T. Oct 16 '15 at 16:39
  • would you mind explaining **why** are they incorrect? – Maulik V Oct 17 '15 at 05:08
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    @Jez - I wouldn't say contractions are "generally avoided" in formal writing; I'd say that that are "used more judiciously" in formal writing. See [here](http://www.businesswritingblog.com/business_writing/2006/04/dont_use_contra.html) and [here](http://www.grammar.com/Contractions-Use-in-Formal-Writing) for more thoughts on this. [YD](http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/style-and-usage/using-contractions.html) says: _many experts caution against the use of contractions in formal communication. However, this rule does have some flexibility._ Even in formal writing, I'd use "Why didn't you" here. – J.R. Oct 17 '15 at 11:03
  • @J.R.: I do agree with you! :) – Hosein Rahnama Oct 17 '15 at 11:17