the city, which, it must also be said--after driving around it all day--is frickin' huge.
Los Angeles goes on and on, long after it's made its point.
All we need to do is find out which plays that played in LA yesterday had around 40 people in the audience, then read the scripts until we find a sentiment that ogged plausibly might have held but holds no longer. Easy-peasy.
"we"? w-lfs-n, you know who Ogged is.
Unless, during your rendezvouses, you actually addressed him as Ogged.
Yes, but I don't know what the quotation was.
Oh definitely, you're the next Bill Bryson, ogged.
Does anyone know when it became acceptable to elide can not into cannot. After I was told that cannot was the preferred usage, I wrote it that way in a paper and got marked off.
"cannot" and "can not" mean different things.
A: Not reading is forbidden!
B: You're not the boss of me! I can not read whenever I want to!!
I have a delicious cookie right here, and I'm just dying to give it to the first person with a non-joke example where "can not", where the "not" binds to "can", means other than "cannot".
I cannot eat that cookie.
I can not eat that cookie, but I will.
where the "not" binds to "can"
The whole point is that in "can not", the "not", not being attached to "can", is available to bind to other words.
Sorry. See my reply to Mitch, since in your example "not" modifies "eat", not "can". I'll grant that "can not" allows for ambiguous parses, but these are easily resolved with the help of context and emphasis.
If the "not" binds to another word, it makes no sense to say that this affects the meaning of "can not", where "not" binds to "can".
What makes you think we were talking about '"can not" where "not" binds to "can"'?
Perhaps languagehat is acquainted with that noted badass lexicon, the Oxford E. Motherfucking Dictionary. "CANNOT. the ordinary modern way of writing can not: see CAN v."
He is acquainted with it, and, since he's very much for the modern in linguistic matters, he would take the fact that it describes "cannot" as "the ordinary modern way" as support, don't you think?
Incidentally, I went ahead and saw "can" in the OEMFD, and it says "negative cannot". "Can not" occurs only in citations, and the latest is from the 1550s.
The OED itself using "cannot" when it means to convey lack of capability. Of course we aren't talking about how "cannot" means "can't", but rather about how "can not" conveys an ability not to do something. Which is clear.
Well, fine. I wouldn't use "can not" either, since modern usage me gusta. But your claim was about meaning, not preferred usage.
I still say that "can not (whatever)" means "is capable of not (whatever)ing". Your requirement to produce an example in which the "not" modifies "can", and yet does not mean "cannot", is equivalent to question-begging.
I only got into usage because you brought it up first with the OED cite. If I said '"bachelor" means "umarried male"', I presume you wouldn't point out that in 1300 it meant "a young knight", would you?
We began with a question of usage:
Does anyone know when it became acceptable to elide can not into cannot.
The answer being, apparently, way the heck a long time ago. You now want to say that in every modern instance of "can not", the "not" unambiguously binds to the following verb phrase. Right?
What's more, if you produce an example in which it seems that that is not the case, I will claim that the author is simply in error, and should have written "cannot".
Okay. But since we're physically separated by some unknown distance, I'll have to eat the cookie for you.
Since it's no secret where I live, the distance isn't, or needn't be, unknown to you. Anyway, have fun eating my cookie.
I can not tell you how much it pleases me to see serious word usage discussions on this blog.
So I won't, will not, shall not, and shan't.
I meant "unknown to the general audience". And the cookie was oatmeal raisin, your favorite. Yum, yum. You should win more arguments with me.
Heck, I'll start picking fights I'm sure to lose, if it means I can give y'all these tasty cookies. By, uh, proxy.
While you were eating that delicious cookie I was eating half of a delicious strawberry-rhubarb pie.
Damn, strawberry rhubarb! Me want.
Damn, I had no idea that my comment would elicit such a discussion. I feel--almost--accepted and stuff. I think I still prefer "can not," but I'm hopelessly reactionary.
We are minutia-minding rhubarbarians.
I think Hell must be w-lfs-n on a continual usage rampage.
Glad that's cleared up. But question: when would "can not" be preferable to some other construction? E.g., "I'm allowed not to" or "I can resist" etc. Seems "can not" is liable to being confusing or vague.
I was thinking that if there were some category of genius based on athletic ability and grace under pressure, he would certainly be one.
I'll be so glad when basketball is over.
Don't make me draft-blog, Bridgeplate.
The all-volunteer blog wouldn't stand for it.
I've never seen a game be so close for so long. Never is a long time, but I certainly can't remember it. Watching those teams play tonight was just beautiful. From the start of the fourth quarter all through overtime, it was a two-point game (except for that one moment in OT when Detroit was up by 4).
Seriously, SB, if you were ever thinking about becoming a fan, tonight would have been the night to really see how exciting the game can be.
Look at poor Joe, naively thinking that the Standpipe has any love for sport in his heart. It's ok Joe, let him suffer. It was a great final 20 minutes.
Spurs, and the (mostly) fantastic Batman earlier this evening. It's been a good one. Night, all.
the Standpipe
A dubious rhetorical move, the ogged. Joe's good cop nearly had me at the brink of benign apathy, before you started hoisting me up by the collar and honking my nose.
I probably shouldn't blog in anger, but you'll admit it was a bit churlish to complain about two basketball comments after the "cannot" hijacking.
But you should at least fake it like you mean it.
Holy shit. Did you see that dude. He was insane with the ball control. I want to have his babies. Woo.
Was that good for you, tiger?
You're the best commenter I've ever had.
It's gotten to the point where I can't take that statement seriously anymore.
Yeah, I can't fucking tell. You're pretty good, anyway.
SB, your use of periods rather than exclamation points in 59 indicates that you meant to fake it. Also, the Tigers are Detroit's baseball team. Can't you even call out the right name?
Darn it, eb, you interruped us at the moment of sarcasm!
Robert Horry is a freak of some sort.
He's even a big enough (sort of) star to get this kind of treatment.
I can not imagine a circumstance under which "can not" would be preferable to "can resist." Sorry for the hijacking.
Hijacking is fine, this the stuff of the blog; but complaining about basketball, grrr.
I like reading about sports ok, not so much watching sports. I am hopeless nerd.
Abby,
Your imagination is woefully underpowered.
Robert Horry is a freak of some sort.
I can't believe they left him open.
I'm really not able to talk about this just yet. I'm still in Stage 2 - anger. Joe, I wouldn't have thought you would be capable of such irredeemable evil as to be a Spurs fan.
They're my hometown team. But I knew you wouldn't be able to keep quiet about this.
It's very weird watching the Spurs go up against Larry Brown's team in the finals. He embodied the Spurs when I was growing up.
Tim, I know that you hate the Spurs, but I tell myself that's just because you don't know the Spurs. When they win, the good guys have won. Not the flashy guys, or the tough guys, or the guys with the shoe endorsements, but the team. The team of the good.
Now, the Lakers -- there's a team to hate for a lifetime.
On topic (more or less), LA is definitely huge, and I find myself driving over 150 miles a day (but not, strictly speaking, all within LA) but Pasadena actually seems more densely urban than the San Jose/Silicon Valley area.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I grew up thinking of LA as sprawl just about everywhere outside of downtown.