failures of parallelism

[Alice Faber]

Arnold M. Zwicky said:
>On Jul 5, 2004, at 1:23 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
>>  ...How about these truly negative ones, just googled up for our
>>  viewing pleasure:
>>
>>  consider password protecting that directory so that anyone can't come
>>  along
>>  and drop your tables
>>
>>  "A customer will feel safer knowing that anyone
>>  can't just waltz into their place of business."
>>
>>  But anyone can't solve that problem...
>>
>>  The Reality as below: anyone can't do what they want to do/anyone
>>  can't be what they want to be/anyone can't say what they want to
>>  say/anyone can't feel what they want to feel
>>
>>  Just anybody can't baptize anybody.
>>
>>  People are looking for more substance in the music, but just anybody
>>  can't give
>>  it to them," Ice Cube told the Los Angeles Times
>>
>>  But I still have to know the password so just anybody can't get on
>>  my desktop and start loading things.
>>
>>  With the fiscal problems we have in Maryland, people are beginning to
>>  realize that
>>  just anybody can't be governor
>
>"But anyone can't solve that problem" is a real baffler for me; i have
>to stop and work out what someone might have been trying to convey by
>it.
>
>the others are, to various degrees, better.  all except the first have
>a "just" in them (and i understand the first as if it had a "just"),
>which seems to improve things some, especially in the "just anybody"
>examples.
>
>i haven't tried to work out what's going on here; these are just gut
>reactions.

Even reading silently, I read "but anyone can't solve that problem"
with added emphasis on "anyone", for what it's worth.
--
 =============================================================================
Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                                     fax (203) 865-8963