Subj : Have not or didn't have
To   : alexander koryagin
From : Anton Shepelev
Date : Fri Sep 22 2017 00:30:51

Alexander Koryagin:
AK> I read in a novel by Judith Wright:
AK>
AK>   Driving  away, John Condon was the minor busi-
AK>   ness-man again. He had not much time to get to
AK>   town for that appointment.
AK>
AK> I  heard that if you had a real thing you say "I
AK> had it", but if it was  not  a  real  thing  you
AK> should say "I didn't have it". But "time" is not
AK> a real thing? ;-) Is there a more accurate rule?

In classic literary English "not" negates  the  verb
it  follows.   You  shall find plentiful examples in
such disparate writers as Lewis Carrol, Arthur Conan
Doyle, and Emily Bronte.

The  rule  you quoted is superficial and purely mne-
nomic, for it provides neither deep insight into the
"make"  of  the  language nor any kind of rationale.
Shun such rules like the plague and study  the  lan-
guage instead of drilling  ill-devised pseudo-rules,
whose only value is in helping poor IELTS and  TOEFL
students pass the tests.

To  get  a  feeling of what true study grammar looks
like, try reading some Folwer or Goold Brown:

  http://www.bartleby.com/116/213.html
  http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11615/pg11615-images.html

I should with pleasure recommend  more  contemporary
works,  but  I know none that show the same level of
coherence and discipline as these old books do.

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