Which question tag is 'correct'?
(A) He has a lot of friends, hasn't he?
(B) He has a lot of friends, doesn't he?
Being an old-fashioned guy, I've been saying (A) for years. But in a recent lesson observation, the teacher said (A) was wrong. Have I been saying it wrong all these years?
So after the visit, I looked up the issue on the Internet. In the language discussion forums, as usual, there are self-professed authorities who cite grammar rules to prove why (A) is 'wrong': "'Has' is a lexical verb, not an auxiliary verb, in the sentence; hence the correct verb in the tag is 'doesn't'.
Luckily, there are also folks who point out that both are fine.
Then, out of curiosity, I turned to ChatGPT. And, like my previous ChatGPT experience, it gave me a traditional, didactic, answer, like the one meted out by the language experts in the online discussion forums.
Hence, my two cents for language teachers:
1. When it comes to investigating the 'correctness' of a grammar item, don't trust ChatGPT.
2. There are many instances of real-life language use which do not abide by grammar rules. Think of grammar rules as attempts to deduce general patterns about the language only, as there WILL be many instances which do not comply with the 'rules'. Hence, teacher language awareness is important.
Finally, if you're about to teach '-ed adjectives' vs '-ing adjectives' ('I feel bored' because 'Paul is boring'), how would you deal with the expression "I feel amazing!"?
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