failures of parallelism

[Wilson Gray]

FWIW, sentences of this type remind of what you would get if you
"standardized" a Labovian Ebonic sentence of the the type:

a. Can't no cat get into no [pigeon] coop ->
b. Can't any cat get into any [pigeon] coop ->
c. Any cat can't get into any [pigeon] coop

Cf. the reversed procedure:

a. But anyone can't solve that problem ->
b. But can't anyone solve that problem ->
c. But can't no one solve that problem

-Wilson Gray

On Jul 9, 2004, at 5:21 PM, Beverly Flanigan wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Beverly Flanigan <flanigan at OHIOU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: failures of parallelism
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> I'll add one that's bothered me for a long time (partly because of the
> singer):
>
> Tom Jones sings "It's not unusual to be loved by anyone."  Huh?
>
> At 02:05 PM 7/9/2004 -0700, you wrote:
>> 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.
>>
>> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)
>