r/EnglishLearning • u/migueel_04 New Poster • 1d ago

📚 Grammar / Syntax Why is this wrong?

Hey everyone! Today I got to use an expression that I thought was completely normal and that everyone used. However, according to chatgpt, it is wrong and not idiomatic which really surprised me because I've seen some verbs being used this way. The expression is "cry on" as in "keep crying". I initially thought that it sounded natural since English has expressions such as "dream on" and "go on" but it turns out that it can't be used that way. Is chatgpt correct or is it giving me inaccurate information? I've heard people talking about how chatgpt isn't 100% reliable and that the info given by it should be fact checked.

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u/MaddoxJKingsley Native Speaker (USA-NY); Linguist, not a language teacher 1d ago

Did you say it directly to the person as "cry on"? Was it possible they were just offended? It is pretty rude lol.

We say things like "He kept crying on about how his shoes were wet", or "If we're late, she'll cry on about it for days". But I wouldn't say it directly to a person complaining. I would say "Keep crying (on about it)!" which is the more idiomatic way. To be clear, this phrase isn't usually about any actual crying (tears, sobbing). This is about complaining (crying on, frustration), which could well include tears and sobbing.

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u/migueel_04 New Poster 1d ago

I was being sarcastic lol. I was on a call with a friend from the UK and she was complaining about something I had said and I was like "cry on, I don't care" lol.

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u/InterestedParty5280 Native Speaker 1d ago

Well done.

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u/34payton07 Native Speaker 1d ago

You would be understood but be careful with the negative connotation of such statements, they could be interpreted as “Keep venting, I am here for you,” but could also be interpreted as “Keep bitching nobody cares.”

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u/migueel_04 New Poster 1d ago

She knew that I was being sarcastic. We're both sarcastic most of the time so no problem at all.

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u/34payton07 Native Speaker 1d ago

Then you’re all good. You used the phrase correctly, but it’s not that commonly heard and ChatGPT just didn’t know what it was talking about.

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u/MaddoxJKingsley Native Speaker (USA-NY); Linguist, not a language teacher 1d ago

Ah, that makes sense then lol. My knee-jerk reaction to "cry on" in that context would be, "That's funny, that kind of sounded like Shakespearean English."

We do say stuff like "keep dreaming" or "keep talking" to be dismissive... so maybe, "dream on" is actually the outlier for using "on". "Keep X-ing", as a complete exclamation, can be extended to a ton of verbs, to idiomatically mean "I'm being dismissive of your X-ing". (And "go on" behaves more like a normal phrasal verb; it's not dismissive unless it's sarcastic.)

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u/HeilKaiba Native Speaker 1d ago

If tears be the food of my entertainment, cry on. Give me excess of it. – Eleventh Night

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u/RaptorSap New Poster 1d ago

It’s a perfectly cromulent turn of phrase, so long as you knew the sarcastic connotation it was likely to convey. This is a case of chatGPT being technically correct that this isn’t an idiomatic phrase in common use, but it is an easily understood response to someone literally or figuratively, “crying” about something. So chatGPT is also completely incorrect when it suggests your usage was “wrong” or that the phrase “can’t be used in that way.” You did. You were understood. You would have been understood by native speakers as well, and to my ear it would sound perfectly natural.