Saturday, December 29, 2012

contractions - Was "Do not you want to know..." correct 200 years ago, and is now incorrect?


"Do not you want to know who has taken it?'' cried his wife impatiently.




-Pride and Prejudice (1813)




According to one of the answers in
Is "Don't you know? " the same as "Do not you know?"?, "Do not you want to know..." is "ungrammatical; you is not heavy enough to shift past not". 200 years does not seem to be that long. When did this happen?



I do not like contractions, so I would like to use "Do not you.." but all the sources say I should use "Do you not..." instead. I am just curious how "Do not you..." became incorrect within 200 years.

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