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Feb 5, 2015 18:51
9 yrs ago
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English term

I am not tall and strong enough

Non-PRO English Art/Literary General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters General
Which one is correct?

A. I am not tall and strong enough.
B. I am not tall or strong enough.
--------------------------------------------

I am preparing some IELTS training materials, and I wrote the following paragraph. Is there any problem with it? I would appreciate any advice from you on how to improve it, thanks!

Examiner: Do you like playing football?
Student: Do I look like a football player to you (jokingly)? I guess I am not tall and strong enough…I am joking…Actually I am a big fan of football games. AC Milan is my favorite team. But I have never played it myself. Maybe I can try it someday.
Responses
4 +6 either, depending on your meaning, or change it completely
4 tall or strong
Change log

Feb 6, 2015 01:38: Yvonne Gallagher changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"

Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

Non-PRO (3): Edith Kelly, Victoria Britten, Yvonne Gallagher

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Discussion

Jean-Claude Gouin Feb 6, 2015:
I WOULD WRITE ... Examiner: Do you like playing football?
Student: Do I look like a football player to you? I guess I am not tall and strong enough to play football.
Peter Simon Feb 5, 2015:
@Shaila, we agree, but as to contractions, tests don't usually contain any. "I'm" would be, to my mind, even in tests, acceptable if I wrote it, "didn't" as well, but then what would you say to including "D'you" as a test item? Or "gonna"? If you use one, than you'd have to use the others too. No, test writers are bound to stick with non-contracted forms as lots of test-takers wouldn't recognize some forms which are otherwise completely 'legal' in some informal novels and such written formats.

Responses

+6
33 mins
Selected

either, depending on your meaning, or change it completely

I think either way of saying it is technically correct. To me, "or" sounds more natural, but it also implies that to be a football player you need to be either tall (regardless of strength) or strong (regardless of height). Using "and" implies that you need to be both tall and strong to play football.

Honestly, as a native speaker, I would probably say something more like "I don't think I'm athletic enough" or "I don't have the build for it"--but I don't know if those are too advanced for your purposes, if you're trying to find phrasing that's at a basic level.

This is unrelated, but if you want the exchange to sound more informal, I would replace one or more of the "I am" with the contraction "I'm". "I am" strikes me as unnaturally formal for this conversation.

I hope that helps!
Note from asker:
Thanks for reminding me the issue of contractions!
Peer comment(s):
agree Victoria Britten : Use (or not) of contractions is an issue in its own right when it comes to tests!
56 mins
agree AllegroTrans
2 hrs
agree Yvonne Gallagher : you don't have to be tall (or big and strong) to play soccer just be athletic and of course contractions are used in informal speech. This doesn't look natural at all
6 hrs
agree Phoenix III
8 hrs
agree acetran
11 hrs
agree Charles Davis : Maradona and Messi show that you don't need to be tall
12 hrs
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
13 mins

tall or strong

I'd prefer to say this as negative sentences (I'm not ... here) generally require 'or' between items of addition and choice. The difficulty is, I suppose you feel it too, that there may not be a choice intended by the speaker and so 'and' may be more appropriate. But even then, 'or' is more appropriate, for the above grammatical reason, which is quite general.

On the other hand, if sb intended to emphasize the choice, there'd be other solutions without ambiguity ('I don't think I'm tall enough, nor am I strong enough', or some such, though this would sound a bit too formal). So I think I'd use 'or' with this sentence.
Peer comment(s):
neutral Sheila Wilson : If the writer thinks they are always "tall AND strong" then he'd say he isn't sufficiently "tall AND strong"
6 mins
Yes, basically, but with the neg., 'or' and ambiguity is more usual. Anyway, that's what all British grammar teaches and I was always corrected long ago by all GB teacher friends until I went along with it.
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