The meaningless use ofdo in interrogative, negative, and affirmative sentences (e.g. "Do you like painting?" "Yes, Ido"), existing in some form in most Germanic languages,[1] is thought by some linguists to be one of theBrittonicisms in English, calqued fromBrythonic.[2] It is first recorded in Middle English, where it may have marked theperfective aspect, though in some cases the meaning seems to beimperfective. InEarly Modern English, any meaning in such contexts was lost, making it a dummy auxiliary, and soon thereafter its use became mandatory in most questions and negations.
“Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, “he would do splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one.” ¶ “So youdo not dance, Mr. Crocker?” ¶ I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.
“I don't know how you and the ‘head,’ as you call him, will get on, but Ido know that if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble. It's bad enough to go around togged out like a life saver on a drill day, but I can stand that 'cause I'm paid for it.[…]”
1950, C. S. Lewis,The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:
"Do stop it," said Susan; "it won't make things any better having a row between you two. Let's go and find Lucy."
(pro-verb)A syntactic marker thatrefers back to an earlier verb and allows the speaker to avoid repeating the verb; in most dialects, not used with auxiliaries such asbe, though it can be inAAVE.
Iplay tennis; shedoes too.
Your remarks piqued my curiosity, as itdid my mom's too.
They don't think itbe like it is, but itdo.(nonstandard)
The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about […], or offering services that let you "stay up to date with what your friends aredoing",[…]and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention.
“Well,” I answered, at first with uncertainty, then with inspiration, “he woulddo splendidly to lead your cotillon, if you think of having one.” ¶ “So you do not dance, Mr. Crocker?” ¶ I was somewhat set back by her perspicuity.
Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy woulddo well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.
A big framed beast takes a lot of food — expensive food at that [—] to keep itdoing[…]
1971,George Ewart Evans, quoting ploughman Charles Last (born 1878),Tools of Their Trades: An Oral History of Men at Work c. 1900[5], Taplinger Publishing Company,→ISBN, page68:
That farm would go like a rick a-fire. It woulddo: it would go forward and prosper and make him his money.
(transitive, chiefly in questions) To have as one's job.
We went down below, and the galley-slavedid some ham and eggs, and the first lieutenant, who was aged 19, told me about Sicily, and time went like a flash.
We 'did' London to our hearts' content,—thanks to Fred and Frank,—and were sorry to go away;[…]
1892, James Batchelder,Multum in Parvo: Notes from the Life and Travels of James Batchelder[8], page97:
Afterdoing Paris and its suburbs, I started for London[…]
1968 July 22, Ralph Schoenstein, “Nice Place to Visit”, inNew York Magazine[9], page28:
No tourist can get credit for seeing America first withoutdoing New York, the Wonderful Town, the Baghdad-on-Hudson, the dream in the eye of the Kansas hooker[…]
Vnto this day theydoe after the former manners: they feare not theLord, neitherdoe they after their Statutes, or after their Ordinances, or after the Law and Commaundement which theLord commaunded the children of Iacob, whom hee named Iſrael,[…]
They really laughed when hedid Clinton, with a perfect accent and a leer.
(transitive, with 'a' and the name of a person, place, event, etc.) Tocopy oremulate the actions orbehaviour that is associated with the person or thing mentioned.
About a year ago, a boy name Brandon got got here in Baltimore. Stuck and burned before he passed.[…] Wasn't no need for y'all todo him the way y'all did.
2004, Patrick Stevens,Politics Is the Greatest Game: A Johannesburg Liberal Lampoon[12],→ISBN, page314:
He's gonnado me, Jarvis. I kid you not, this time he's gonnado me proper.
Sometimes they lie in wait in these dark streets, and fracture his skull,[…] or break his arm, or cut the sinew of his wrist; and that they calldoing him.
2010 April 24, “Given stretchered off with suspected broken shoulder”, inThe Irish Times[14], retrieved2015-07-21:
"Defender Kolo Toure admitted Given will be a loss, but gave his backing to Nielsen. 'I think he'sdone his shoulder,' said the Ivorian."
2014 April 14, Matt Cleary, “What do Australia's cricketers do on holiday?”, inESPNcricinfo[15], retrieved2015-07-21:
"Watto will spend the entire winter stretching and doing Pilates, anddo a hamstring after bending down to pick up his petrol cap after dropping it filling his car at Caltex Cronulla."
2014 August 13, Harry Thring, “I knew straight away I'd done my ACL: Otten”, inAFL.com.au[16], retrieved2015-07-21:
"'I knew straight away I'ddone my ACL, I heard the sound - it was very loud and a few of the boys said they heard it as well,' Otten said."
In older forms of English, when the pronounthou was in active use, this verb possessed second-person singular present indicative formsdost anddoest, and a second-person singular past indicative formdidst.
Similarly, when the ending-eth was in active use for third-person singular present indicative forms, this verb possessed third-person singular present indicative formsdoth anddoeth.
There was a tendency to use the shorter formsdost anddoth as auxiliaries, anddoest anddoeth elsewhere.
We’re having a bit of ado on Saturday to celebrate my birthday.
1980, Jona Lewie, Keef Trouble, “You'll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties”, performed byJona Lewie:
She was into French cuisine but I ain't no Cordon Bleu / This was at somedo in Palmers Green, I had no luck with her
1980 December 13, Mitzel, “Dale Barbre's Murder Transformed”, inGay Community News, volume 8, number21, page13:
A gross-gutted, bulb-nosed, bourbon-stanky Boston flatfoot in plain clothes wrinkled white sox, with a race track tip-sheet stuffed in his back pocket tryingreal hard to mingle unnoticed at an elegant Buddies "do" to glean inside-dope.
2013 September 13,Russell Brand, “Russell Brand and the GQ awards”, inThe Guardian[17]:
[…]; this aside, though, neon forever the moniker of trash, this is a poshdo, in an opera house full of folk in tuxes.
2020 December 4, “No fibs” (1:34 from the start), in (Zone 2) Karma × Trizzac (lyrics),Demented:
Get it done, no not properly Them man thought that they got me True, I came back like a fucking zombie Attempteddo with the ching Have an opp boy say “please don’t chong me!”
Coined by Italian musicologistGiovanni Battista Doni in 1635 as an easier-to-singopen-syllable revision to the solmizationut of Guido of Arezzo, from the first syllable ofLatinDominus(“TheLord”) (speculated by some to be an ulterior abbreviation ofGiovanni BattistaDoni) on the pattern of other Latinatesolfège with the stated justification thatGod is the tonic and root of the world.
^Langer, Nils (2001)Linguistic Purism in Action: How auxiliary tun was stigmatized in Early New High German[1], de Gruyter,→ISBN
^John McWhorter (2009) “What else happened to English? A brief for the Celtic hypothesis”, inEnglish language & linguistics, volume13, number 2, Cambridge: University Press, pages163-191
^“The O'Connell National Statue”, inThe Freeman's Journal[2], Dublin, 1862 October 23, page 2
Bolton, Kingsley, Hutton, Christopher (2005)A Dictionary of Cantonese Slang: The Language of Hong Kong Movies, Street Gangs and City Life, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press,→ISBN, page100
2000, Domingo Frades Gaspar,Vamus a falal: Notas pâ coñocel y platical en nosa fala, Editora regional da Extremadura, Theme I, Chapter 1: Lengua Española:
I si “a patriado homi é sua lengua”, cumu idía Albert Camus, o que está claru é que a lengua está mui por encima de fronteiras, serras, rius i maris, de situaciós pulíticas i sociu-económicas, de lazus religiosus e inclusu familiaris.
And if “a man’s homeland[i.e. “homelandof the man”] is his language”, as Albert Camus said, what is clear is that language is above borders, mountain ranges, rivers and seas, above political and socio-economic situations, of religious and even family ties.
Reanalysis ofdo(“past tense marker”) and the early modern unstressed preverbdo- of verbs likedo-gheibhim(“I get”),do-chím(“I see”) (and possibly alsoa- ina-tú(“I am”),a-deirim(“I say”)) in relative clauses as a relative marker.[5]
used with the possessive determinersmo,do,bhur to indicate the direct object of a verbal noun, in place ofag after a form ofbí in the progressive aspect
Tá sédo mo ghortú. ―It’s hurting me.
Bhí sédo d’fhiafraí. ―He was inquiring about yousg.
Bhí sibhdo bhur gcloí. ―Youpl were being overthrown.
^Seán Ó Catháin (1933) “Some Studies in the Development from Middle to Modern Irish, Based on the Annals of Ulster”, inZeitschrift für celtische Philologie, volume19, number 1,→DOI, The Transitionro >do, pages14–20
^Liam Breatnach (1994) “An Mheán-Ghaeilge”, in K. McCone, D. McManus, C. Ó Háinle, N. Williams, L. Breatnach, editors,Stair na Gaeilge: in ómós do P[h]ádraig Ó Fiannachta (in Irish), Maynooth: Roinn na Sean-Ghaeilge, Coláiste Phádraig,→ISBN,§§11.4–5, page280
^Damian McManus (1994) “An Nua-Ghaeilge Chlasaiceach”, in K. McCone, D. McManus, C. Ó Háinle, N. Williams, L. Breatnach, editors,Stair na Gaeilge: in ómós do P[h]ádraig Ó Fiannachta (in Irish), Maynooth: Roinn na Sean-Ghaeilge, Coláiste Phádraig,→ISBN,§§7.2, 7.5, 7.16, pages394–5, 399, 408–12
And while there is a delay, with his trembling right handhe offers [them] red wine. (Hyrieus serves his guests, unaware that they are gods. See:Hyrieus;Orion (mythology).)
Non igitur provocatio ista legedatur, sed duae maxime salutares leges quaestionesque tolluntur. Quid est aliud hortari adulescentis ut turbulenti, ut seditiosi, ut perniciosi cives velint esse?
It is not, therefore, a right of appeal that isafforded by that law, but two most salutary laws and modes of judicial investigation that are abolished. And what is this but exhorting young men to be turbulent, seditious, mischievous citizens?
Quid, quod obrogatur legibus Cæsaris, quae iubent ei qui de vi itemque ei qui maiestatis damnatus sit aqua et igni interdici? quibus cum provocatiodatur, nonne acta Cæsaris rescinduntur? Quae quidem ego, patres conscripti, qui illa numquam probavi, tamen ita conservanda concordiae causa arbitratus sum ut non modo, quas vivus leges Cæsar tulisset, infirmandas hoc tempore non putarem, sed ne illas quidem quas post mortem Cæsaris prolatas esse et fixas videtis.
What more? Is not this a substitution of a new law for the laws of Cæsar, which enact that every man who has been convicted of violence, and also every man who has been convicted of treason, shall be interdicted from fire and water? And, when those men have a right of appealgranted them, are not the acts of Cæsar rescinded? And those acts, O conscript fathers, I, who never approved of them, have still thought it advisable to maintain for the sake of concord; so that I not only did not think that the laws which Cæsar had passed in his lifetime ought to be repealed, but I did not approve of meddling with those even which since the death of Cæsar you have seen produced and published.
^De Vaan, Michiel (2008)Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7)[3], Leiden, Boston: Brill,→ISBN
c.800–825, Diarmait, Milan Glosses on the Psalms, published inThesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 7–483, Ml. 97d10
Is peccad díabul lesom .i. fodorddoïb di dommatu, ⁊ du·fúairthed ní leu fora sáith din main, ⁊ todlugud inna féulæ ɔ amairis nánda·tibérad Día doïb, ⁊ nach coimnacuir ⁊ issi dano insin ind frescissiu co fochaid.
It is a double sin in his opinion, i.e. the murmuringby them of want, although there remained some of the manna with them upon their satiety, and demanding the meat with faithlessness that Good would not give it to them, and [even] that he could not; therefore that is the expectation with testing.
B. Sieradzka-Baziur, Ewa Deptuchowa, Joanna Duska, Mariusz Frodyma, Beata Hejmo, Dorota Janeczko, Katarzyna Jasińska, Krystyna Kajtoch, Joanna Kozioł, Marian Kucała, Dorota Mika, Gabriela Niemiec, Urszula Poprawska, Elżbieta Supranowicz, Ludwika Szelachowska-Winiarzowa, Zofia Wanicowa, Piotr Szpor, Bartłomiej Borek, editors (2011–2015), “do”, inSłownik pojęciowy języka staropolskiego [Conceptual Dictionary of Old Polish] (in Polish), Kraków:IJP PAN,→ISBN
According toSłownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej (1990),do is one of the most used words in Polish, appearing 1245 times in scientific texts, 1326 times in news, 1088 times in essays, 1260 times in fiction, and 935 times in plays, each out of a corpus of 100,000 words, totaling 5854 times, making it the 9th most common word in a corpus of 500,000 words.[1]
^Ida Kurcz (1990) “do”, inSłownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej [Frequency dictionary of the Polish language] (in Polish), volume 1, Kraków, Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Języka Polskiego, page76
Maria Renata Mayenowa, Stanisław Rospond, Witold Taszycki, Stefan Hrabec, Władysław Kuraszkiewicz (2010-2023) “do”, inSłownik Polszczyzny XVI Wieku [A Dictionary of 16th Century Polish]
“DO”, inElektroniczny Słownik Języka Polskiego XVII i XVIII Wieku [Electronic Dictionary of the Polish Language of the XVII and XVIII Century],07.03.2019
Aleksander Saloni (1908) “do”, in “Lud rzeszowski”, inMateryały Antropologiczno-Archeologiczne i Etnograficzne (in Polish), volume10, Kraków: Akademia Umiejętności, page333
“do”, inSlovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak),https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk,2003–2025
Bill Palmer,The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area (→ISBN, 2017), page 531, table 95,Comparative basic vocabulary in Lakes Plain Languages
Used to express an affirmative answer to verbs in the preterite (simple past) tense.
In colloquial speech it can sometimes be heard as an answer to any question referring to the past (such as those in the perfect or pluperfect), but this is considered nonstandard.
Long C., Rebecca, Cruz M., Sofronio (2000)Diccionario zapoteco de San Bartolomé Zoogocho, Oaxaca (Serie de vocabularios y diccionarios indígenas “Mariano Silva y Aceves”;38)[23] (in Spanish), second electronic edition, Coyoacán, D.F.:Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, A.C., page367
