posted
So*, I have a couple of problems that I encounter quite frequently and I always forget to ask you guys which is the correct form.
Problem no.1: I want to say that I can do the opposite of something. Like in "I'm able not to drink water for a whole day." Doesn't sound quite right to me. I was wondering if there's another way to put it, maybe one that involves the verb "can"?! "I can not drink" isn't really the same thing, is it? It will be interpreted as "can't drink", and that's not what I want to express.
Problem no.2: When someone else performs an action and I do it too: "Me too, I [verb]..." or "I also..." (sounds like "I do something and I also do something else", not what I'm looking for here...).
Any suggestions? I hope I was clear enough, but if not feel free to ask me what I meant, maybe by posting a few examples of your own and ask me to choose the meaning that's closer to mine. Thanks.
posted
Answer #1: "I'm able not to drink water for a whole day" is my favorite, and while the Classicist in me shudders at the split infinitive, "I'm able to not drink water for a whole day" is fine, too. For that matter, "I can not drink..." also works, since it's different from "I cannot drink..."
Answer #2: I'm not completely sure I understand the problem, but it's certainly acceptable colloquial English to use "me, too" to show emphasis.
Posts: 1068 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Problem no.1: Ok, I guess I'll stick with "able not to". Sounds better than "able to not" or "can not".
Problem no.2: Hmm, let's see. Say that you play tennis every day. I want to say that so do I, and want to continue the sentence. So plain "So do I" doesn't do it. What do I use? "I also play tennis every day, except when I'm going fishing." or "Me too, I play tennis every day..."? The first one sounds like "I eat every day. I also play tennis every day...", if you see what I mean, and that's kind of different from what I want to say. Phew, this is hard! Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I would re-write the first sentence as, "I am not able to drink water for a whole day." (or you may substitute "unable" for "not able")
For the second, "I also . . ." is the preferred construction. However, "Me too, I . . ." would be fine, if less formal. Or you could combine them, and say, "Me too! I also . . ."
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Uhh, rivka, this: "I am not able to drink water for a whole day." is definitely NOT what I was looking for! More along the lines: "I can go without drinking water the whole day." (Hey, that actually sounds ok! )
As for the second part, I'll probably go with "I also". See, the problem is that in Romanian there's a perfect way of saying that, without any possibility of confusion. The way it is in English might not sound confusing to you, but it does for me, a little bit. Oh well, I'll build a new language when I have some free time. Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I agree with Dante. While I don't care about splitting infinitives, it sounds more awkward, so I'd go for "I'm able not to drink water for a whole day".
Posts: 2978 | Registered: Oct 2004
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By the way, what's the English word for the placement of parts of a sentence in it? Anyway, Tante, my sentence (the one that you rearranged) sounds perfect... in Romanian! I still slip from time to time, and sometimes I'm not even sure whether both variants are correct or not! Oh well, you live, you learn...
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
How about avoiding the problem entirely and say "I'm able to refrain from drinking water for a whole day"? If you definitely want to use one of the constructions already suggested, I think that "to not drink" sounds much more natural and somewhat less confusing than "not to drink". The whole "don't split infinitives" thing is just a grammatical bit from classical languages, in which it is impossible to split an infinitive, that classicists have tried unsuccessfully to graft onto English.
For problem number two, how about "I do that as well"? You've got whatever verb they used as the antecedant for "that", so it's clear that you're not trying to say that what you do is a new thing, in the context of the conversation.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Wow, thanks Noemon, good suggestions! About the "not to drink"/"to not drink", you can see why I have problems with that when even you guys aren't all saying the same thing! Edit: I'm not set on any of those forms, I just wanted to find one that sounds ok.
Any ideas about my vocabulary question, the one in the post just above yours?
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
Thanks! Yep, I can definitely see why you'd have had trouble picking between "not to drink"/to not drink"--honestly it's possible that *I* would have even given you the opposite answer on a different day.
As for the vocabulary question, hmmm. I'm not completely sure what you're asking for, but this could easily just be a question of my being a little slow this morning. Could you rephrase the question?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
Noemon beat me to it on the water question.
As to the vocab, you can do it a number of ways. Consider:
A: "I play the guitar." B: "I also play the guitar."
B is being kind of formal here.
A: "I went to my cottage over the long weekend." B: "What an incredible coincidence! I went to my cottage over the long weekend as well!"
"As well" is just as good as "also," but still somewhat formal. However, since I'm presently reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell... you get the idea. In real life, the most common thing to do would be what Tante says:
A: "I like to eat monkey brains." B: "I like to eat monkey brains too. Let's have dinner together!"
I think the word you might be looking for is "syntax." [Edit: Curses! Beaten by KQ!]
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Take the two sentences: "I can go without drinking water the whole day." "I can go all day without drinking water."
What Tante did was take "the whole day" and put it right next to the verb (transformed to "all day", but that's not important). My arrangement seems awkward once you see the second form, right? That's because there's a "proper" way to put those words in the sentence, no? Hope it's clearer now.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
And "did you never read" seems kind of odd to me. I wonder if there's a better way to phrase it... Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I was curious as to whether this would turn up an answer, so I just put your original wording ("placement of parts of a sentence") into Onelook's reverse dictionary feature. Guess what? It worked! Result number 4 is "syntax". (1, 2, and 3 are "structure", "configuration", and "head", respectively, but it's not hard to scan the list and find the word you're looking for if you know it and have just forgotten.)
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posted
"Did you never read X as a child?" "Did you not read X as a child?" "Didn't you read X as a child?"
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Oh, yes, Corwin, Onelook is awesome. I make use of their regular dictionary's "wildcard" feature to check my spelling on a regular basis.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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A little too serious? Half the time my answers are completely in jest, often involving rivka's hair, ketchup, or Frisco-objectification...
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posted
Oh, and that was "not being too serious" I take it?!
(You DO know I'm just teasing, right? Sometimes I'm afraid I go too far, and it's hard to tell in writing... )
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(We need a "black leather bodysuit" smiley. And it's a pity my whip-cracking smiley doesn't work here. )
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posted
But I don't read these three as being exactly the same thing!
"Did you never read X as a child?" "Did you not read X as a child?" "Didn't you read X as a child?"
The first two are almost the same thing, maybe with a bit of surprise that you somehow avoided reading that famous tome, X.
The third one implies, "I think I kind of remember your reading X when you were twelve? Didn't you say that it was so awful you'd rather eat monkey brains?"
Posts: 1751 | Registered: Jun 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: [QB] Make up a new language in your free time? Someone has already done that.
Hey! I'm studying Esperanto through a 10-lesson online course right now. Their website isn't working right now, and I hope it'll be back up soon.
I love that langauge because of its perfection: every noun ends in O, every adjective in A, most adverbs in E, and all verb infinitives in I. Plurals end in J, and objects in N. It's so easy! Posts: 206 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
You should check out some of the music in Esperanto. I downloaded a program for studying Esperanto and it has two mp3s of songs in Esperanto. They're really quite interesting.
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