"can do so much"

[Tom Zurinskas]

If "can do so much" can actually mean "can do only so much", then perhaps Churchill really meant "Never have only so few owed only so much to only so many"?  I don't think so.  The sentence really needs "only" in there to make sense.



Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com













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> Date: Sat, 23 May 2009 15:39:58 -0400
> From: hwgray at GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: "can do so much"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: "can do so much"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Was there any conclusion arrived at as to the (historical) origin of
> "I could care less"? I first heard it used in the Army in the late
> '50's. Neither I nor any other of the 400 or so recruits in my
> training company had ever heard it before - the phrase engendered much
> discussion in the barracks. Yet, among seasoned soldiers (BTW, has
> anybody else noticed that, on the TV show, NCIS, marines are almost
> always referred to as "soldiers"?), "I could care less" was already
> used as routinely as "fuckinay shitcan buttcan stockade one's bunk
> latrine (un-)ass KP personal weapon bitch box (a form of outdoor
> pulpit at Fort Leonard Wood; a barracks intercom, elsewhere)" and
> other examples of military jargon.
>
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 12:12 PM, Herb Stahlke wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender: Â Â Â American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Â Â Â Herb Stahlke
>> Subject: Â Â Â Re: "can do so much"
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I'm sure there's been discussion before of "I could care less,"
>> meaning the same as "I couldn't care less." Â But I don't recognize
>> "can do so much" as the same sort of thing.
>>
>> Herb
>>
>> On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>>> Sender: Â Â Â American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Â Â Â Arnold Zwicky
>>> Subject: Â Â Â "can do so much"
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> Zalmay Khalizad (who has served as the U.S. ambassador to Iraq,
>>> Afghanistan, and the UN), speaking on the radio program It's Your
>>> World (a program of the World Affairs Council of Northern California),
>>> said "The military can do so much", clearly meaning, in the context,
>>> 'the military can do only so much' (i.e., not everything, or not a
>>> lot, while "the military can do so much" otherwise conveys 'the
>>> military can do a lot').
>>>
>>> i haven't found other examples that work this way, but it's not easy
>>> to search for them. it's entirely possible that Khalizad's sentence
>>> was a simple speech error, an inadvertent omission of "only", and it
>>> might be relevant that English is not Khalizad's native language
>>> (Persian is).
>>>
>>> anyone recall other examples of this sort?
>>>
>>> arnold
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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