I saw a teaser yesterday for LOST, the upcoming "television event", featuring Dominic Monaghan and friends. There was a part of the voice-over that didn’t seem to work for me, and it went something like:

"They’ve survived the worst… or have they? "

It bugged me for ages although I couldn’t quite work out why. Then finally I realized that the wording made it sound like the last question was asking "or have they not survived?" rather than "or is there worse to come?", and of course I assumed that the latter was intended – And only just this instant am I going "duh" at myself, realizing that it may actually have been worded that way for a reason, because this series is supposed to be all creepy and mysterious isn’t it, and maybe the characters didn’t survive the mysterious crash, and maybe the bloody cheesy voice-over on the promo has just gone and given it all away…?

Anyway, even if this particular example is semantically correct, I do hate this grammatical construction… or do I?

See how crap it sounds when the tag isn’t negative? Compare the following:

I have green eyes, have I not?

I have green eyes, haven’t I?

I have green eyes, or have I?

Only the first two sound right to me, although I accept that all three have slightly different meanings. The third is making a statement followed by a rhetorical question which immediately undermines it, and that seems wrong to me. Losing the question but preserving the tease, I would rephrase it: "I have green eyes, or so you might think."

Probably I dislike the "… or have I?" form because of its coy rhetorical nature. I would only use it myself if the tag question was real, as it might be should it strike me to suddenly doubt the very thing I am asserting. As in, "Yes, I turned the gas off… or did I?"