Can You Not?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, how are you? I am David Shelton. Today I’m calling from Detroit, Michigan.

All right.

Welcome to the show. How can we help?

We have a situation in my household. I actually live in Montreal, and I’m from Detroit, born and raised.

My wife, her mother is from Barbados, and we live in Canada, so the Commonwealth British background.

And she’s a stickler for language, and so she’s often correcting me for my tendency to use ebonic expressions or regional things from Detroit, Michigan. But she uses an expression that irks me, if you will.

She will occasionally correct me and say, can you not do such and such a thing? And I find that word usage, I don’t know, it just rubs me the wrong way.

So I wanted to bring it to you and ask you about that usage of that negation or negative expression. Can you not?

So you sound like this is serious business for you.

He said it was a situation.

Yeah, a situation.

Yeah, a situation there.

I heard the capital letters on that, situation in all caps.

Yeah.

So, David, she’s saying things to you like, can you not leave the cap off the toothpaste tube, that kind of thing?

That’s the kind of thing, exactly.

And I feel like saying, can you not? Say, can you not?

But she’s saying, can you not, is a full sentence, right? Just, can you not? Like, you’re doing something that annoys her, and she says, can you not?

Exactly.

What I want to zero in on here, what I want to home in on, get right to the core of this is, is it because she’s disagreeing with your behavior as much as it is because she said something linguistically that didn’t quite sound right to you?

That’s interesting.

I think it’s the linguistic part that bothers me because I also find it to be difficult even when, I mean, not difficult, but it also strikes me when she uses it toward our children or something like that.

So it’s not just when she’s checking me.

So linguistically, what’s happening there, we do this a lot in English. We have this thing called ellipsis, which is kind of like the actual punctuation ellipsis. Something is left out.

We do this, let’s say, if I asked you, where’s the ice cream? And you reply, over here. You don’t say the full response, the ice cream is over here. You just say over here, even though there’s no verb, there’s no subject, right?

Another example might be, this happens a lot. Somebody will say, take care. And you say, you too. Yeah, there’s a subject there, but there’s no verb.

So the ellipsis a lot of times leaves stuff out that both parties or all parties in the conversation understand to be there. It need not be said.

So you know what she means. When she says, can you not, you know what she’s referring to.

David, here’s what strikes me about it. It sounds like you could translate that as, are you utterly incapable of refraining from doing that? I mean, there’s an implication. There’s a certain level of emotion there.

I think that you don’t hear if somebody says, you know, please put the cat back on the toothpaste. If you’re saying, can you not? It’s this utter exasperation, right?

You win this round, Barnette.

That’s a good, that’s good.

Yeah, well, you know, you’re absolutely right. She’s a fairly severe individual, especially when she puts on her mother face or whatever and gives you a look, you know.

So, yeah, when you put the two together, it does have quite a zing to it.

A zing, yeah.

So I think Martha really has nailed what’s kind of annoying, because I’ve heard that before. I don’t think I’m bothered by it as much as you are.

Yeah, but the whole question, the sub-question, the subtext is, are you incapable?

Right.

Yes.

What is wrong with you, David? Would you please refrain? I’ve told you again and again.

That’s right.

Exactly.

Would you please refrain? You know? It’s not even would you please. It’s like, can you not? What’s broken in you?

Well, I want to thank you all so much for your time. I really enjoy your show.

Oh, we’re glad to have you. Call us some other time. It sounds like you’ve got a great linguistic situation there. Stuff is going to keep coming up.

Oh, I have a plethora. Of example. Of plethora. Myriads.

Have a great day. Take care, David.

Excellent.

Take care, David.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, call us about the linguistic situation in your house, 877-929-9673, or send us the whole story in email to words@waywordradio.org.