Yesterday, I put a message in a social network environment to inform other members about lottery:
"Lottery for year 2016 is now open, try your chance. It does not have any especial condition."
But a member answered:
"'It does not need' is closer to English instead of 'does not have' ."
Are both forms grammatically correct? and which of them is more common and suitable?
Thank you.
Learn English – “have/has condition” or “need condition”
grammaticalitymeaning
Best Answer
Both constructs feel kind of odd to me, though yours ("It does not have...") feels less awkward. A lottery can't own conditions, nothing can. Therefore it cannot be said to have special conditions. Nor can a lottery need conditions. That, to me, makes it sound like a living thing, that must be fed conditions in order for it to survive. I know, this sounds a bit mental, but there's a connotation of this lottery being an actual living organism with both your phrasings. I'd put it like this:
But still, the "no special conditions apply" is rather vague. This can be taken to mean that this lottery is a no strings attached kind of deal; or that there are no conditions that apply, other than those that normally do (in most countries that I know of, there's an age restriction, some people might be prohibited to gamble for other legal reasons, like people probation might be prohibited to gamble). In that case, I suspect it's common to write something like: