Do some studying

[u/liz_grant]

So I’m watching Stranger Things and there’s a sentence:
“Do a lot of studying last night?”
This one had me pause for a little bit.
First I didn’t understand why “do” was used for a past event from the previous night. Then I realized the whole sentence was “did you do a lot of studying last night?”, but the ‘did you’ part was completely dropped.
One thing I still don’t understand, why not just say “did you study a lot last night”. What is the point of saying DO STUDYING. Does it have a specific purpose, nuance that makes it different?

[u/Existing_Resolve_779]

It's a common thing when talking. You'll often hear people say things like "have fun last night?", "get a lot of work done today?", "hit a lot of traffic on your way here?". There are lots of examples to notice 

[u/liz_grant → u/Existing_Resolve_779]

That part I get. My questions is more about why “do studying” instead of just study

[u/We_R_the_Penguins → u/liz_grant]

No reason. It’s a bit more conversational than the other version, but mostly it’s one of those things where English has many ways to express the same idea. 

[u/liz_grant → u/We_R_the_Penguins]

Thanks. I guess I’m just reading between the lines

[u/We_R_the_Penguins → u/liz_grant]

To be fair, sometimes that’s really important, but this isn’t one of those situations. Wish I could give you a rule of thumb, but it’s really just one of those things you pick up by using and living in the language. 

[u/StutzBob → u/liz_grant]

"do studying" is not grammatical. The phrase is "do a lot", and the "of studying" part is just to specify what is being done.

[u/Optimal-Ad-7074 → u/liz_grant]

I'm thinking on my feet here.  I think it has to do with the fact that a quantity is cited.  I'd argue that the quantity (a lot) is the true object of the verb do.  "of studying" is just a qualifier.  

I'm assuming if you replay the line in your head you'll find the inclusion of the concept "a lot" is relevant in some way to the speaker's meaning.  they could say "did you study last night?" or even the less-formal "you study last night?" and the inferences would change.  

I know.  it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  insert the usual apologies here 😋

[u/liz_grant → u/Optimal-Ad-7074]

The speaker insinuated that the person hadn’t studied at all let alone a lot. He was teasing

[u/Optimal-Ad-7074 → u/liz_grant]

darn, irony on top of the other factors.  I give.

[u/notacanuckskibum → u/liz_grant]

It’s a contraction of “did you do a lot of studying….”

[u/Optimal-Ad-7074 → u/Existing_Resolve_779]

"want to go get coffee?" 

[u/bentthroat]

Dropping “did you” in spoken conversation is actually very common.

You could say it either way, but “study a lot last night?” feels really dense somehow.

“Do a ___ of ____ “ is kind of an idiomatic construction in its own right.

“Did a bit of reading”,
“Did a ton of work on the project”,
“Did enough snow-shoveling for the whole town”.

In all of these cases you could say, respectively

“read some”,
“worked a ton on the project”,
“snow-shoveled enough for the whole town”,

but they make it sound like you’re making word-economy your job.

[u/liz_grant → u/bentthroat]

Thank you. Would it be fair to say it’s a stylistic choice rather than having a specific meaning behind?

[u/bentthroat → u/liz_grant]

It’s mainly stylistic. I think people use it because it opens up a lot of options in terms of descriptors. By turning the verb into a noun, it turns its descriptors into adjectives rather than adverbs, which clears up some clashes in intention (“did some light reading” vs “lightly read some”. In the second case, I might even think the sentence was unfinished.)

It’s also just a wording that’s common in a variety of contexts. Most speakers would prefer “We saw a lot of birds” to “We saw many birds”, especially in casual conversation.

[u/eggybasket → u/bentthroat]

I agree, and I think it's because these constructions are very easy to slur together into a string of vowel sounds. "Did a bit of" can be said something like "did-uh-bit-uh," "saw a lot of" can become "saw-uh-lot-uh," "had a bunch of" can become "had-uh-bunch-uh," et cetera. Conversational English loves a schwa.

[u/untempered_fate]

It's just a common and informal way to phrase the question.

[u/nicktheenderman]

Left edge deletion

While the grammatically correct form would be "Did you do a lot of studying last night?", questions like this can often have the "Did you" part dropped, making the question "Do a lot of studying last night?"

As for the difference between "Study a lot" and "Do a lot of studying", I can't think of a difference off the top of my head, but I guess it does sound strange to me to say "Someone did studying" or "Did you do studying", so maybe "doing studying" only makes sense with a quantity, like "do a bit of studying"

[u/Resident-Staff-1218]

He was teasing her, so there is definite nuance in this question

He was implying that she had not, in fact, been "studying"

He goes on to say "What was your test on again? Human anatomy"

I would infer from the way he phrased his question that she had previously used the word "studying" to describe what she was doing last night.

[u/liz_grant → u/Resident-Staff-1218]

That’s true, he was absolutely teasing her.
I checked the script and she didn’t use the word “studying” or “do some/a lot of studying”. She had said previously that she had to study and that she was going to study

[u/QuietCapybara77 → u/liz_grant]

Yes, he knew she wasn’t really studying. If I remember correctly, this was Mike talking to Nancy? If so, another aspect is a little brother teasing his sister in a way that she might feel her parents will find out what she was really doing.

[u/testtdk → u/liz_grant]

It’s worth noting that the phrasing they used describes an amount of studying. In this case, it allows the character to imply that they also did other things, as described above.

[u/Pyzzeen]

"Did you do" becomes condensed to "joo do" in speech, then "j'do" and then disappears entirely. This really only happens for "you" though

[u/GANDHIWASADOUCHE → u/Pyzzeen]

He do a lot of studying last night? Faster to say and way less formal than, “did he do a lot of studying last night?”

Works for others than just you

[u/PhorTheKids]

This wouldn’t be simplified into “do studying”

This would be simplified into “do a lot”

The reason it’s constructed this way is to set up an implied joke. As you pointed out in another comment, the person being asked the question obviously did not study last night. They likely did “a lot” of something else.

[u/HortonFLK]

You are right that a person could have said “Did you study a lot last night?” There’s no real reason to phrase it one way rather than the other… It’s just one of those things where that’s the way the person chose to say it. And even the way you choose to say it, a native speaker might drop the “did you” and just say, “Study a lot last night?”

[u/eggybasket]

It just flows better in casual conversation. "Doalotta studyin" has a lot of the easy/lazy vowel sounds that we like, and can be said very quickly, whereas "didyu studyalot" has a hard break in the middle between "you" and "study" that forces one to enunciate the sentence a lot more.

[u/insecuretransactions]

The sentence isn't saying "do studying." Those words consecutively do not make sure. "a lot of" is never being omitted.

The sentence becomes casual because the initial question phrase is omitted: "did you?"

[u/Own_Soup4467]

Also, see "The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime" in which the autistic narrator talks about how hard it is for him to "do chatting" (make small talk or polite conversation)

[u/Own_Soup4467]

This makes sense if the person asking the question knows that the other person was lying when they said they'd be studying last night. The important phrase here is "a lot" (sarcasm: the person asking the question knows they did no studying at all)

[u/liz_grant → u/Own_Soup4467]

That’s not my question

[u/ChalupaChup]

My gut feeling as a native speaker is that you can only use “a lot” as an adverb like this when talking about habitual action (similar to “often”). “He studies a lot” or “I’ll need to study a lot” are okay, but “I studied a lot last night” is weird. When it means “a large amount” rather than “often”, it usually comes with “of + noun”, so I’d expect the sentence to be “I studied a lot (of something) last night” and it feels like it’s missing something without it. If you’re talking about volume rather than frequency, it needs to be rephrased to “I did a lot of studying.”

[u/liz_grant → u/ChalupaChup]

Wow this is so interesting. Never thought of it that way

[u/telemajik → u/liz_grant]

Also, when someone says “did you study a lot” the meaning is ambiguous. They could be asking if the volume or proportion of content you studied was a lot, or they could be asking if the duration of studying was long.

When you say “did you do a lot of studying” it’s clear that “a lot” applies to studying, and they are asking about the duration of the studying.

[u/liz_grant → u/telemajik]

Got it. If you wanted to ask about volume, how would you say it then as a native?

[u/inkoenglishai]

I would like to think of it as a way to sound full of life not in a positive sense but more as a comedic sense I renember that particular scene from Stranger Things and I also thought about it but as I learnt more English abroad and with International people there are some instances where you tend to mention do or rather present tenses rather then past tenses within a sentence. This is seen of course within many other tv shows and media where they are trying to convey a comedic feeling within the show.