Be very careful when buying used on Craigslist or local forums!

[iPwn]

Yeah but how old, and how many used up was the laptop?

Is this a correct English sentence?

Assuming he was asking as to the 'wear and tear' of the laptop, the "Many" and "Used up" in the same sentence make it redundant.

Properly formed:
"Yeah but how old, and how many used [up] was the laptop?"
The "up" being present in the sentence becomes questionable, because "used up" tends to mean depleted, as in you drank the entire glass of water. There's no more left. Using this term on something like a laptop... while probably not the best way to phrase it still works... kind of. This is what is known as English "Slang." People understand what you're saying... it's just not exactly proper. However, if you ever visit New Orleans you'll see how prevalent and common place slang is.

English is a stupid language, so try not to understand it too much.
According to englishery rules, this sentence is grammatically sound:

Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?

However, I think Matt_C may have just left "many" in there as the remnants from another line of thought, but didn't backspace enough.

 

[Smart_Guy]

"Yeah but how old, and how many used [up] was the laptop?"

Err, I thought we were talking about language, not quantum physics of the half life equation

 

[strollin]

...
English is a stupid language, so try not to understand it too much.
...

I think this sentence isn't right, I believe it should be "... , so don't try to understand it too much.". "... try not ..." sounds like something Yoda from Star wars would say.

 

[iPwn]

I think this sentence isn't right, I believe it should be "... , so don't try to understand it too much.". "... try not ..." sounds like something Yoda from Star wars would say.

This is why English is a stupid language.

What I wrote is grammatically accurate; what you're suggesting is another way that is perfectly acceptable in the context of that sentence. Also too however, you have to be careful as to when you're using contractions (e.g. don't) as this is suggested as only acceptable in casual interactions; for a college paper, legal document or otherwise formal text, you would need to use both full words. The contraction "don't" now becomes "do not".

Which brings me to the observation that both "do" and "try" are verbs signifying action. Followed immediately by not, they are both double negatives as well; this would suggest that any combination of a double negative showing the inaction of an attempt at trying to understand the English language would work, assuming of course, the author is attempting to dissuade someone from said action.

Err, I thought we were talking about language, not quantum physics of the half life equation

Welcome to English.

It's not that it's hard per say, but there are a lot of contradictory rules/forms/etc. that make it silly as a language.

 

[frank55]

I have bought (and sold) lots of stuff from Craigslist, never had an issue. Didn't you check out the laptop before you bought it? What did you expect from a $30 laptop?

Yes me too, i wouldn't buy anything from Craig's list without meeting the seller and check the item first before buying,it's good practice to buy only on your area Craig's list so you can meet the seller on a Mall near you.

 

[strollin]

I had my first "problem" selling a laptop on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago. Had an older Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop with a Core 2 Duo cpu that worked fine. I advertised it on Craigslist and a guy came to look at it. I showed him that everything worked on it and he was satisfied so gave me the money, took the laptop, got in his car and drove off.

A few hours later he called me and was ranting that there were things broken on the laptop, it wouldn't charge and that it was overheating. I explained that there was nothing wrong with the laptop when he left and I had no idea what he may have done to it to cause the problems he was having. He told me that he was going to let it charge overnight and, if it didn't charge, he would bring it back the next day. I told him he could bring it back and I would look at it to see if it was fixable but that I would not give him his money back. He finally hung up and I never heard from him again.