The English language is filled with quirks. Many words and phrases seem ordinary and unexceptional but, on closer inspection, are a bit perplexing. Take the phrase “don’t you dare.” Native speakers know this is a forceful way of telling another person not to do something. (“I’m telling Mom!” “Don’t you dare!”) But you’ve probably never heard anyone say, “Do not you dare!” when angry. Why is that?
Imperative Sentence
Let’s start from the beginning. “Don’t you dare” is a specific type of sentence — an imperative sentence. This type of phrase commands, requests, gives advice, or instructs. The other kinds of sentences are declarative, exclamatory, and interrogative.
The phrase “don’t you dare” is a command because it tells someone else not to do something. In this case, it’s a negative imperative, telling the listener not to take action.
Subject Pronoun
It also features a subject pronoun — the word “you.” The pronoun “you” is doing some heavy lifting in the sentence. For example, “Don’t she dare” or “Don’t they dare” doesn’t make sense. You could say, “Don’t anyone dare,” but that’s the only alternate pronoun that works as a substitute.
Confounding Contraction
In addition to the pronoun being relatively inflexible, the contraction is pretty stuck in its ways, too. Typically, a contraction like “don’t” makes sense in its abbreviated or full form. But the phrase “do not you dare” sounds strange and jumbled.
It wasn’t always this way. Hundreds of years ago, the phrase “do not you” was used in writing. Take this example from the King James Bible, which was translated in 1611:
“But do not thou yield unto them: for there lie in wait for him of them more than forty men, which have bound themselves with an oath….” Acts 23:21
Over time, the “do not you” construction in imperative sentences fell out of favor for the more casual and conversational “don’t you.”
If you wanted to unravel this sentence, you could place the subject as a direct address at the beginning. In other words, “You, do not dare!” would be an acceptable alternative. This version still sounds very formal and stilted, and we wouldn’t recommend it, but it solves the antiquated “do not you” problem.
Is It an Idiom?
Because “don’t you dare” is a phrase with a set meaning that may not be able to be detected based on the individual words, some dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster, define it as an idiom.
The meaning of “don’t you dare” is understood as a whole, but the words broken down don’t have the exact same meaning. The word “dare” means “have the courage to do something.” But this phrase doesn’t mean “don’t have courage.” Instead, it’s usually spoken in anger or hostility, almost as a threat. It’s the words “don’t you dare,” not “do not you dare” or “you, do not dare” that give this idiomatic phrase some force.
Here are a few other examples of “don’t you” phrases that tend to function as idioms, or at least colloquial phrases:
Don’t you worry about it.
Don’t you forget it.
Don’t you believe it.
Don’t you wish.
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