visit there versus visit it

[hayunlee]

Hi, I'm a middle school student living in Seoul, South Korea. I have a question.
Is #1 grammatically correct?
I answered #1 and I got this question wrong on my English test last week; the answer was #2. Teachers in my school say that #1 is not correct, but it seems there's no grammatical error to me.

A: How was your subway tour of Seoul?
B: It was great.
A: Did you visit Insa-dong?
B: No, I didn't.
A: 1. You should have visited there. 2. You should have visited it.

 

[e2efour]

Welcome to the English forum, hayunlee!

It's unusual in BE, but is found in AE. For example, the Washington Post, 2008:
"Dar al Hijrah has evolved dramatically since 2001, when it came under official suspicion amid reports that a man linked to the terror attacks in New York and Washington had visited there."

 

[hayunlee]

Welcome to the English forum, hayunlee!

It's unusual in BE, but is found in AE. For example, the Washington Post, 2008:
"Dar al Hijrah has evolved dramatically since 2001, when it came under official suspicion amid reports that a man linked to the terror attacks in New York and Washington had visited there."

Hi! Thank you so much for your reply! But I'm wondering what does BE and AE mean. And could you give me a link for the example sentence from the Washington Post, 2008 ??

 

[Florentia52]

BE = British English
AE = American English

Choosing between the two I would be more likely to say "visited it," but it might depend on what Insa-dong was. If it's an area, as opposed to a specific site, "there" would also be an option.

On my own, I would probably say "You should have gone there." In casual conversation, AE speakers tend to use "visit" for going to see and interact with other people: "I visited my grandparents last weekend."

 

[e2efour]

The link to the Washington Post is in the COCA corpus: http://corpus.byu.edu/coca. You have to enter "visited there" in the search string box and then click on VISITED THEREon the next screen to see the 63 examples.

 

[hayunlee]

Oh, I checked the website (the COCA corpus), and it was so helpful for me! Thank you so much!!!!!!!!

 

[JungKim]

Welcome to the English forum, hayunlee!

It's unusual in BE, but is found in AE. For example, the Washington Post, 2008:
"Dar al Hijrah has evolved dramatically since 2001, when it came under official suspicion amid reports that a man linked to the terror attacks in New York and Washington had visited there."

If this expression of "visited there" is possible, how about the following sentence?
Dar al Hijrah, where a man linked to the terror attacks in New York and Washington was reported to have visited, came under official suspicion.

In this sentence, is it okay to have "where" as shown at least in AmE? Or should "where" be replaced with "which" even in AmE, as follows?
Dar al Hijrah, which a man linked to the terror attacks in New York and Washington was reported to have visited, came under official suspicion.

Or are both possible in AmE?

 

[Keith Bradford]

I'll start using "where....visited" when the standard construction becomes "visit to/at...".

In other words, if we said: "A man linked to the terror attacks in New York and Washington was reported to have visited to Dar al Hijrah", then "where" would be the appropriate choice. But we don't, and it isn't.

 

[JungKim]

I'll start using "where....visited" when the standard construction becomes "visit to/at...".

In other words, if we said: "A man linked to the terror attacks in New York and Washington was reported to have visited to Dar al Hijrah", then "where" would be the appropriate choice. But we don't, and it isn't.

Would you accept the original sentence used in the Washington Post article as shown in post#2?
You speak BrE, so I guess you might not accept the original either, but I'm not sure.

 

[Keith Bradford]

No I don't, but American English is often different from mine.

 

[JungKim]

Thanks, Keith Bradford.
I guess I'll have to wait for some AmE speakers to provide me with their own answers to my question.