This is an All Ears English Podcast, episode 2310.
Do not miss these English grammar tips.
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We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
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How do you know where to put not in a statement in English?
Even native speakers get confused about this sometimes.
Listen in for our top grammar tips today.
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Hello, Lindsay. How are you?
Aubrey, I'm doing fantastic.
How are you? How are you feeling today?
Excellent. I am great.
I'm wondering what is something you have not done lately that you would like to do?
Well, actually, we haven't gone to the mountains in a while.
Normally we go a lot, but in the last month or so, we haven't been up there.
So I'm hoping to go up there this weekend, up to the mountains.
Oh, I hope you get up there.
And the weather I bet is beautiful in the mountains in Colorado right now.
Yes, the fall and the mountains, all the Aspen are changing color, becoming bright gold, yellow, golden.
It's amazing. What about you, Aubrey?
What's something you have not done lately that you would like to do?
I have not been able to take a nap.
And sometime I would like one free afternoon to take a nap.
I can't really nap though.
I'll try sometimes, and it just doesn't happen.
I'm the same way. I remember how easy it was to nap in college.
Everyone nap in college.
It was like a college kid thing to do, right?
Well, because it would stay up till 3 a .m.
so that we kind of had to nap.
Right. Right. Exactly.
But it was just so easy to fall asleep for hours at a time.
And for some reason, I feel the same way as an adult, I really can, unless I've just been up all night.
Right. Well, I asked Lindsay this question.
I wanted to use this, what have you not done lately?
Not to negate things in English can be a little tricky.
We got a really good question about this.
Where do you place the knot?
Sometimes it's a little tricky.
And Lindsay and I were mentioning sometimes we're not even sure we're doing it correctly.
Right. Sometimes you'll say something and realize it sounds a little awkward.
Sure. You're not sure why.
Yes. A hundred percent.
And this episode is inspired by a question from Mauro.
Should I go ahead and read Mauro's question?
Yeah, let's do it. All right.
Mauro says, how are you?
First, magnificent, magnificent episode, 2286 on the Bickersons.
I love that my dad calling us the Bickersons.
I hope you guys caught that episode.
If not, scroll up the difference between squabble and bicker.
Yeah, that was, that was a cute story.
I like that. That your dad made up that name for your, your family of your siblings and stuff because you're always bickering.
Do I say you need to listen to all there's English in order not to miss great English tips or you need to listen to all there's English in order to not miss great English tips?
Thank you, Mauro. So it's a great question.
Yes, a really good question.
I can imagine as you're learning English, you might hear both or you hear one way or not sure why.
So this is a perfect question for us to dive into, not when we're negating something like this, why it needs to be because one or the other is correct here or at least sounds more correct.
What do you think, Lindsay?
Which sounds right to you?
Oh my gosh, which sounds right?
I don't know. In order not to miss you need to listen, in order not in order to not miss, I think the second one sounds better.
This is what's so tricky is then it's like, okay, let me actually think about it.
It sounds natural when we're having a conversation, but in one sentence in isolation, sometimes it's sort of hard to figure it out, right?
Yes, it's true. So we're going to dive into, we have a great tip for you guys to know which to use.
There are actually two grammar issues at play here.
Yes, I can't wait to get into these tips.
So we'll finally know the answer to that, but first hit the follow button right here in All There's English.
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Yes, awesome. So the first really good news is neither is really wrong, right?
You're not making a grammar error.
Just one might be sound less awkward to people.
And there's two reasons.
We're going to dive into the first one.
It's all about subordinating conjunctions.
Well, that's a big term.
And sometimes these are multiple words, like, for example, in order to.
Yeah, that's a big scary term.
But actually it's going to give us a sense of relief because both are correct in that case for Mauro, right?
Exactly. Right. But the tricky thing here is that a subordinating conjunction that has multiple words, we keep these together as a chunk.
So usually you'll keep in order to and so then the correct or at least what's going to sound right to most native speakers is that you need to listen to All There's English in order to not miss great English tips because we're keeping that chunk together.
Now, just like you said, Lindsay, it does not really sound incorrect.
You can also say in order not to miss great English tips.
There's no grammar teacher somewhere who's going to be super upset with you.
It's not that you're breaking a rule.
It's about what people are used to hearing what sounds correct.
And because we hear in order to together as a chunk, it usually will sound more correct to keep that together in order to not miss great tips.
Okay. Okay. Let's give some other examples, right?
Did we have another example with in order to as this?
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
In order to with an infinitive form of a verb to express the purpose of something.
So you could say in order to finish in time, we need to meet this week, right?
And you would not usually hear in order to not finish late.
We need to meet this week.
Okay. Right. You, well, that's the, that is the correct example with not.
But it's interesting with in order to often we will try to, we wouldn't say it in an, we wouldn't say in order not to, right?
Is what you're saying, Aubrey?
Exactly right. We wouldn't split it and say in order not to finish late.
Yeah. Yeah. And again, you can say both, but it's just, we're so used to seeing, hearing this chunk together, right?
So we keep it together.
We keep it in integrity and we put that not after at the end.
Exactly right. But is it a grammar mistake?
No, you can do both.
Neither of them sound super weird or awkward.
So don't stress about it.
But if you're wanting like, okay, which should I do?
What's the rule? What's the tip?
Keep these chunks together.
Any subordinating conjunction that has more than one word.
There are other examples, right?
Besides in order to as long as whether or not even though there are a lot of subordinating connections that are more than one word, and you're going to want to keep those together as a chunk, as a general rule.
Yeah, that's good to know.
And that should be easy enough to remember that we learn the chunk and we know not to split it, right?
We keep it together.
Keep it as a little family.
And it's not just about not, right?
We also will have adverbs maybe, and we can keep this chunk together if we're saying, for example, we already made plans in order to get everything scheduled early.
If we put already in the middle of that chunk, it will sound a little strange, right?
We made plans in order already to get everything scheduled, right?
We want to keep in order to together.
Yeah, that doesn't sound right at all.
Right. That sounds way worse.
We're not in there a little bit, but anything else is like, nope, keep in order to together.
Yes, keep it together.
I like it. All right.
So that is the first piece, first tip for today, subordinating conjunctions where we keep the words as a little chunk.
Now we also, we have the option in other cases to split infinitives.
Tell us about this, Aubrey.
Yeah. So the other question here, when I usually hear this question from students about like, where should I put not?
It's usually about splitting infinitives, and this is absolutely fine.
It is grammatically correct.
You will, as a preference, you might hear a teacher you might see online, don't split infinitives.
We do it all the time.
It's not a grammar mistake.
Mm -hmm. Okay. Good.
So where do we go from here?
Do we have any examples that we want to share?
Yeah. So what we're just to talk about splitting infinitives a bit, the normal form of a negative infinitive is not to, and then the verb.
Okay. For everything, right?
So for example, try not to miss any episodes of the podcast.
Yes. And this is we're removing in order to, but really saying the same thing.
So we have try not to, and then the verb is miss, try not to miss any episodes.
Okay. But the other form, to not blank, right, where we're splitting the infinitive with the word not, is still grammatical, right?
Yes, but it's used in order to convey a special meaning or to emphasize something.
This is interesting, Aubrey.
What do we mean by this?
Right. It's very subtle, but if we listen to these two different examples, when we split the infinitive, we usually are doing it to emphasize.
So for example, I said, try not to miss any episodes of the podcast.
Like, Oh, this is not that big of a deal.
Just try not to do it.
And then if I split the infinitive and I say, try to not miss any episodes of the podcast, there is emphasis here.
Like this is important.
Yeah. You hear the difference, Lindsay?
I can hear a little bit of a difference.
I think it depends on what you're saying, but certainly it's quite subtle, but I feel like you are drawing more attention to what you're saying here.
Exactly, right? In this case, it implies more effort.
It's sort of, yeah, because the sort of natural way to do it is to not split the infinitive.
When you do, it's usually for an intent.
Like you are drawing a little more attention to the message.
Interesting. All right.
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Okay, Aubrey, let's go through and see how this all shakes out in a role play.
Shall we? Let's do it.
You and I are at a state fair in this role play.
Do you ever go to the state fair, Lindsay?
Yeah, I used to. As a kid, I used to go a lot to the county fair in New Hampshire.
Things like that. I haven't been to one in a while.
Yeah. It's been a while for me too, but they're fun.
They honestly are fun.
Get some funnel cakes and walk around, see the horse shows.
It's fun. Ride the ride.
I feel like you and I both need to get to the state fair to relive those old childhood memories.
That's something I wish I had done.
What have you not done in a while that you want to go to the state fair?
All right, here's the role play.
I want to try all of these rides.
I actually need to avoid the zipper if I want to not get sick.
No worries. I'll try not to be too sad about missing that one.
I have to leave at nine in order to not run out of time.
We should jump in one of these lines right away.
Sounds good. All right.
Yes. When you go to an amusement park, everyone has their hard line, right?
Exactly. I do have a few rides I have to avoid.
I know they're going to make me sick to my stomach.
Yes. Yes. For sure.
For sure. So the first thing you said, Aubrey, I actually need to avoid the zipper if I want to not get sick.
So tell us about this one.
Where do we come back to from the lesson?
So I'm splitting the infinitive here.
This is the last one we talked about.
And I'm saying want to not get sick.
And it is just a little bit to emphasize here, right?
Because there are a lot of ways I could say this.
I need to skip the zipper or I'll get sick.
Yes. If I don't want to get sick, that's really the most common.
If I don't want to get sick, I should not do that.
Right. So if I split the infinitive here, there is a little bit of emphasis.
If I want to not get sick.
Okay. So this is where we're emphasizing because we are splitting it.
Right. And I think you may not choose to say it in this way.
Like you said, Aubrey, you might say, oh, I might get sick.
Like you said, I might get sick.
I tend to get sick.
There are so many ways to say it.
I'll probably get sick.
Right. I don't want to get sick, so I'm not going to do that.
There are a lot of ways to say it, but you will hear the infinitive split this way.
It's not a mistake.
And it is so subtle, that little bit of emphasis that is added.
And then I said, no worries.
I'll try not to be too sad about missing that one.
Seems like I'm being a little sarcastic or something.
Exactly. Or maybe you really wanted to go on that one.
Okay, fine. And this is that first option, the sort of normal form for negative infinitive, not to x.
I'll try not to be sad.
If you wanted to emphasize or maybe be a little more funny or you could say, I'll try to not be too sad.
Either would work. Okay, good.
And then what did you say, Aubrey?
The next one. The last one I said, I have to leave at nine.
In order to not run out of time, we should jump in one of these lines.
So this is where we're using that subordinating conjunction in order to we keep it together as a chunk.
Yes. And have not after.
Nice. Remember, we keep those together because we just learn them as a chunk and we don't split them.
Love it. Aubrey, what's another episode our listeners might want to check out if they want to get on a grammar track, get into grammar today.
Right. We have a lot of fun grammar episodes here on the podcast.
Twenty three hundred, just scroll up a few, was It's Time You Mastered to this English grammar.
We talked about the subjunctive mood, which can be really tricky in English.
Mm hmm. And where should we leave our listeners today?
I mean these negatives, they can be tricky, guys.
And now we've given you a basic idea of when to use not when, you know, of when to use not and when to not split chunks.
Okay. Exactly. Right.
Sometimes these chunks need to be kept together.
But again, connection, not perfection.
This isn't something to stress out about too much.
Right. Even native speakers will do it both ways.
And it's not going to sound like a glaring error.
I love it. So good.
Guys, hit the follow button if you love all there's English and we will see you back here very soon.
All right. See you next time.
Take care, Aubrey. Bye.
Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
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