eg. They don't have to do chores and can't do chores. Can I merge these and say they don't and can't do chores?
Learn English – Can you say I don’t and can’t do anything
grammar
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Best Answer
There is nothing wrong with saying
This expression uses the rhetorical device known as zeugma. From Sylvae Rhetorica:
In this case, you're linking two verbs to the same object. The do is elided from the first verb, making it kind of a double-jointed zeugma, in that it links both don't and can't to the helper verb do, and then to the object chores.
EDIT: To respond to an objection that "don't have to" is not the same as "don't" (a premise that is arguable if not as far-reaching as the objecter wishes to make it out to be) I will note that the zeugma works just as well with the wordier
The point is, if I say I "don't do something" it can mean a number of things: that I am not required to do them, refuse to do them, have never had the occasion to do them, or any of a number of things. It's ambiguous, to be sure, but that is how people talk.