Forums

Discuss all things Remember The Milk.

menu

Typos in the help section

ja.vroegop says:
Forgive me when I'm wrong (English isn't my native language) but I think "Why aren't I receiving email reminders?" isn't a correct English sentence. Shouldn't it be "Why am I not receiving email reminders?" ?
The same goes for "Why aren't I receiving instant messenger reminders?".

Anyway... Your service rocks!!!
Posted at 10:20pm on December 17, 2005
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
"aren't I" is actually acceptable in English instead of "am I not".

I did some quick research, and historically "ain't" is the proper contraction of "am not" -- but "Why ain't I receiving email reminders?" would just sound weird :)

Glad you like the site!
Posted 18 years ago
ja.vroegop says:
Oke, sorry to have bothered you with that. "Aren't I" seemed weird to me... :D

Keep up the good work!
Posted 18 years ago
mddperkins says:
Interesting. Ja is not incorrect regarding this.

"aren't I" is acceptable as a contraction for "am I not" in spoken, informal English; however, since no true contraction exists for "am not", "aren't I" should not be used in written, formal English since the expanded form is actually grammatically incorrect: "Why are not I receiving email reminders?" should therefore technically read "Why am I not receiving email reminders?".

See this and this (part d towards the bottom).

I'm not personally bothered if it is changed or not, just didn't want Ja to think what he had learnt was wrong. :) Good job on picking it up!
Posted 18 years ago
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
mddperkins, thanks for pointing this out :)

I probably should have mentioned that "aren't I" shouldn't be used in written English -- as we're using a conversational tone on the website, we're bending the rules a little bit :)
Posted 18 years ago
This topic has now been closed automatically due to a lack of responses in the past 90 days.