On Thursday 8 May 2008 6:45:24 Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 5:08 PM, Ben Caplan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Fair point. However:
> > "Could" is the subjunctive form of "can" (R754(1)), as in "I can join
> > the AAA today; I could have joined the AAA yesterday." "Can" SHOULD
> > be taken to mean "CAN" (R2152).
>
> Hrm. I wonder if that use of SHOULD actually does anything. Does it
> qualify as an explicit definition of lower-case "can", as described in
> R754(2)? If not, then R754(4) applies to both "can" and "could", and
> R754 wins precedence over R2152.
>
> > I agree that "could" *could* be reasonably read to mean what you want
> > it to, but it could also reasonably be read not to. We don't really
> > have a case of "it should have said X if that's what it meant". What
> > it says is the most straightforward way to express X.
>
> Er, you don't think that "CAN" is a more straightforward way to
> express "CAN" than "could"?
But less grammatically appropriate. "CAN" is currently only ever used
in its strict MMI sense to declare that a particular action or event
CAN or CANNOT happen. The only place where it is used in the course of
a subjunctive is in the last paragraph of R478, where it is buried in
a lot of wrapping grammar ("Where the rules define an action that CAN
be performed 'by announcement'"), and even there, "CAN" is being used
more as a word that the rules use with respect to actions by
announcement than for the actual idea it refers to.
This is a clearly different case. When the idea represented by the
word "can" is placed in the grammatical context of describing a
hypothetical action, and in particular when we are testing for
possibility rather than defining it, "could" is the appropriate
declension.
The current wording of 2169 could only be clarified by violating
English grammar or by making the affected sentence much more ornate,
or by capitalizing COULD. There is absolutely no precedent for MMI
caps on words not present verbatim in MMI.
Pavitra
