dare not – English Grammar Profiler

This is another overlapping B2 grammar point found in a few different places in the English Grammar Profile.

Point 47 in VERBS is defined as

semi-modal auxiliary verbs, ‘dare’ and ‘need’.

The two examples are both in the negative. And the comments in the EGP are very interesting for this point:

LOW FREQUENCY ITEM. There is very little use of dare as a semi-modal in CLC even at C2 level. Most examples are dare as main verb. At C level there is lots of evidence of dare + to inf and lots of errors with dare + -ing; Similarly need is most frequently used as a lexical verb need to.

*Also there are no examples of ‘dare’ as semi-modal in the whole PELIC corpus.

Half of this grammar point is covered under ‘need not’ at the same level. And the other is covered at the same level under ‘dare not infinitive’.

An iWeb search:

need|dare _XX _VVI

1 NEED NOT WORRY 3684 2 NEED NOT APPLY 1810 3 NEED N’T WORRY 1443 4 NEED NOT FEAR 1407

5 NEED NOT LOOK 875

6 NEED NOT GO 720

PELIC STUDENT EXAMPLE:

Students need not even go to class 

because they know the lecture notes will be on the class web page 

along with the practice midterms and finals.

Arabic, Male, level 5, writing class

7 NEED NOT TAKE 552 8 NEED NOT WAIT 428 9 NEED NOT MAKE 426 10 DARE NOT SPEAK 339 11 NEED NOT INCLUDE 294 12 NEED NOT KNOW 285 13 NEED NOT SAY 261 14 NEED NOT CONCERN 246 15 NEED NOT FEEL 232 16 NEED NOT USE 226 17 NEED N’T LOOK 217 18 NEED NOT TELL 206 19 NEED NOT MEAN 193 20 NEED NOT GIVE 184 21 NEED NOT PAY 179 22 NEED NOT CONSIDER 168 23 NEED NOT SPEND 163 24 NEED NOT PROVIDE 153 25 NEED NOT ADDRESS 150 26 NEED NOT BOTHER 146 27 NEED N’T BOTHER 144 28 NEED NOT WONDER 138 29 NEED NOT DECIDE 137 30 NEED NOT COME 137 31 NEED N’T GO 133 32 DARE NOT SAY 131 33 NEED NOT DESPAIR 131 34 NEED NOT GET 130

35 NEED NOT PROVE 125

B1 vocabulary: apply, consider, fear, prove, provide, wonder

You need not think too formally or too particularly.

Japanese, Female, level 4, writing class