Dear Members,
Virtually every day, on ESLP, I see Members who begin their Post: �I have a doubt�.
The Oxford English Dictionary does not list �I have a doubt� as a phrase.
The Chambers Dictionary does not list �I have a doubt� as a phrase.
The Oxford Collocations Dictionary does not list �I have a doubt� as a phrase.
Chambers Thesaurus does not list �I have a doubt� as a phrase.
The British National Corpus does not list �I have a doubt� as a phrase.
Here is the link to the British National Corpus.
http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/
�The British National Corpus (BNC) is a 100 million word collection of samples of written and spoken language from a wide range of sources, designed to represent a wide cross-section of current British English, both spoken and written�.
If you type in the phrase: �I have a doubt� and then press �Go�, what do you see?
RESULT: �No solutions found for this query�.
However, when I typed in the following phrases, these were the results:
�I have a problem� = 32 solutions.
�I have a question� = 10 solutions.
�I have a query� = 3 solutions.
The British National Corpus also lists hundreds of other similar phrases, frequently used by English speakers.
But, �I have a doubt� is NOT LISTED in the BRITISH National Corpus as a phrase.
Other languages use this phrase, or something similar.
However, I think it is reasonable to say that British English speakers do not normally use the phrase: �I have a doubt�.
Les Douglas
