The Spelling of Cannot

[Lynne Murphy]

--On Monday, January 29, 2001 10:20 am -0600 Natalie Maynor
<maynor at CS.MSSTATE.EDU> wrote:

> A student recently asked one of my colleagues why "cannot" is
> usually spelled as one word while the other negatives aren't.
> Is there an answer?
>    --Natalie Maynor (maynor at ra.msstate.edu)



My hypothesis for why it's one word:  it means something different if it's
two words.

I cannot sing.  = I am not able to sing.
I can not sing (if you like).  = I am able to not sing.

No one seemed to do spell it as one word in South Africa, and a lot of
people don't in the UK either.  NODE says that both forms are acceptable,
but 'cannot' is more common.  Whereas in US English, I'd say that a
sentence like "I can not fit into this dress anymore" is wrong.

Lynne



M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320