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How dare him? Is there any English version where "how dare him" could possibly be correct? I thought only "how dare he" was valid. But why would the mayor of Chicago make a mistake like that? https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/gya75b/how-dare-him-chicago-officials-are-livid-about-jussie-smollett
Mar 27, 2019 8:13 PM
Answers · 25
4
No it is not correct, and I can't think of a situation where it could possibly be correct. As to how the mayor could get it wrong? Well, assuming the headline was an accurate report of what he said, it could be explained by the fact that the mayor was reportedly 'livid' - very angry at the time he said it. Nevertheless, it is a very odd grammar error to make.
March 27, 2019
2
It’s wrong, of course, but there’s a good explanation. The reason why a native speaker would make such a mistake is that standard sentence order is SVO. When the subject pronoun comes after the verb, speakers often put it in an object case. Now, it is true that we usually use inversion in questions (VSO), but this generally isn’t an issue because English uses a helping verb for the inversion, with the main verb after the subject: “How does he dare to (do that)?” The problem with “dare” is that it’s a “semi-modal”, meaning that it can be conjugated like a modal verb or like a regular (non-modal) verb. The problem is that the speaker apparently mixed the two uses together. Fun facts: “Dare” is a bit of a holdover from Old English, and the Merriam-Webster dictionary still has entries for alternative (outdated) conjugations of dare: “darst” (as in “thou darst”), “dast” and “durst”. Other examples of semi-modals: ought, need.
March 27, 2019
1
Grammatically this doesn't make sense, but spoken English is not always about grammatical correctness but about meaning, and I think this really emphasises the speakers point when he uses him instead of he. I know it's probably not the definitive answer that you were looking for but it's pretty common to do that in English.
March 27, 2019
1
Well, that's quite a good video to show to my teacher when she tells me off next time for an "improper russian accent"😂😂😂
March 27, 2019
1
Wow. I just watched the video of the mayor talking. That is indeed what he said, and he said it twice. How bizarre of him! How bizarre of him! I've never heard anything like that in my long life. I'm as bewildered as you are, Wanda.
March 27, 2019
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