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Man 1: We need to do something.

Man 2: What do you want us to do? We can't do anything.

Is the emboldened response/question natural and does using "us" include Man 1? If not, would "What do you want we should do?" work better to include both of them?

user134579
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    "What do you want we should do?" is not idiomatic in most varieties of English - see https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/258015/why-doesnt-that-clause-come-after-want/282372#282372 ). ("Want" generally doesn't take a clause as its object.) – rjpond May 25 '21 at 16:25
  • @rjpond, as your linked answer mentions, "what do you want [someone] should do" would not sound strange to me—my grandparents were both second-generation Eastern European Jewish immigrants. It would sound deliberately Yiddish but it wouldn't sound wrong. Other uses that don't use "to do" as the following verb would not sound as natural. – randomhead May 25 '21 at 20:38
  • @randomhead That's fair enough. That's why I said "most" and "generally" and linked to to my answer. It's interesting though. I didn't know that "to do" being the following verb made a difference. Thanks. – rjpond May 25 '21 at 20:42

1 Answers1

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In this exchange

Man 1: We need to do something.

Man 2: What do you want us to do? We can't do anything.

Man 1 uses 'we', so 'us' probably includes Man 2. If Man 1 had used 'You', then maybe 'us' includes the unmentioned Man 3 to man N. Much depends on context.

'What [do] you want I should do?' is stereotypical of New York Jewish speech (possibly derived from a Yiddish speech pattern). I have heard it described as a a calque (loan translation) of the German du willst dass ich soll and of the Yiddish וועלן איך זאָלן/veln ikh zoln.

Michael Harvey
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  • To add, "What do you want [person] should do" sounds like natural Yinglish to me, not necessarily dated at all. I would say that only "should do" is natural in this construction; other verbs would not be. – randomhead May 25 '21 at 20:40
  • Agreed, but I think it's a moot point whether 'Yinglish' is a language, or even a dialect . I have heard it described as 'English characterized by a lot of Yiddish loanwords', but I don't see any loan words in 'What you want [person] should do?'. You want we should discuss Yeshivish? – Michael Harvey May 25 '21 at 20:45