| 词组 | cannot |
| 释义 | cannot 1. Cannot, can not. Both spellings are acceptable, but cannot is more frequent in current use. Chambers 1985 insists that cannot must be used in British English unless the not is to receive particular emphasis. A couple of American sources (Oxford American Dictionary 1980, Trimble 1975) mention that the two-word form can be used to indicate special emphasis, although Irmscher 1976 warns that publishing-house style may prevail over your emphasis. Emphasis on not appears to be intended in this passage: • You said a while ago, says your man, that you were a better man than any man here. Can you jump? • I can not, says the sergeant, but I'm no worse than the next man —Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds, 1939 In general, however, the one-word form is used: • Dr Bourne cannot yet call her out of danger —Jane Austen, letter, 10 Jan. 1809 • ... a simple fact that ... the C.C.C.C.'er cannot admit —Simon 1980 2. Cannot is in regular use by writers on usage in the sense "should not, ought not." This usage conflicts with their commonly repeated oversimplification of the relation of can and may, as William Safire, in the New York Times Magazine (17 Feb. 1980) noted, when he reprinted a sentence of his: • You can flout convention and you can flout authority, but you cannot use flaunt for flout. A correspondent, he reported, suggested that may not should have been used in place of cannot. But this use is so clear and firmly established in writing on usage that it should not be quibbled at. Look at these examples: • ... being quite superfluous, cannot be defended by an appeal to the secondary meaning of aggravare — Hodgson 1889 • But a person cannot be aggravated —Bierce 1909 • 'Purport' cannot be used in the passive —Bernstein 1962 • ... as cannot be used as a preposition —Phythian 1979 • ... a thing cannot be more or less or rather or somewhat or very unique —Kilpatrick 1984 • Plus cannot be used as a substitute for also —Harper 1985 |
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