After hours Toolkit

Story: 20 more writing mistakes that make you look stupid

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One of these "errors" is not like the others

"Wildgoose nails it thus: "There used to be a Head & Shoulders advert in which 'I didn't know you had dandruff' is said to a girl — and she replies 'I don't'. Aaaargh! You don't 'do' dandruff, you HAVE it. The correct reply is 'I haven't'". 'Nuff said."

Er ... isn't the full completed response, "I don't [have dandruff]?" Would you say "I haven't dandruff?" Not on this side of the Atlantic, you wouldn't. So I'm afraid that Head & Shoulders is correct in this case. The grammatical response to the question in North American idiom is either, "I don't have" (awkward) or simply "I don't" (better).

However the original question "I didn't know you had dandruff" has a tense problem that is extremely common -- unless you are referring to a former case of dandruff, that is -- in which case the only simple grammatical response would be "I hadn't" but again, this is not natural for a North American speaker. The only alternative is to alter the verb in the course of responding, thusly: "I didn't have it." Or you could simply cut a corner and say "I didn't" and assume that the verb alteration is implied. I doubt that you could call this shortcut a strict grammatical error. Omitting verb alterations that would have to change to agree with a new subject is rather a grey area.

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