Usage of Can

A detailed Summary of Usage of Can

There are not that many words in English that can, without any change in their grammar structure, be both a verb, a noun, several slang nouns, and a transitive verb (that is the one that derived from the noun). The verbal meaning of "can" came to our language from either Old High German "kan" (in modern German it is "kann" and has the same meaning as English "can") or from Old English's "cunnan" which meant "to know more". If we think for a moment about the meaning of "being able to do something" - as "can" prescribes us to behave - we cannot deny the fact that it must absolutely involve some knowledge of how to do that. Thus I tend to believe that Old English's origin of "can" is more convincing.

Since every subject's examination starts with identification and understanding of

the matter we start by looking up the word "can" in the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and see that it has several usage variants, many of which include phrasiological participles. The first meaning and the most obvious and common usage of "can" to us all is - "to be able to do something, to know how to do something". In this context the commonly used synonym of "can" is "may", but often the speaker does not know the exact meanings of two words,

Grammarians suggest us to view the acceptable application of "can" as a substitution of "may" only in spoken language. This theory is supported by the fact that modern day people have learned the idiomatic expressions using "can" from the early childhood years, like when parents told them: "It is only after you clean your room you can go outside and play." Therefore, as a part of everyday spoken language this use of "can" is perfectly natural.

Regarding the commonly used form of "can" in the past tense, all of the dictionaries agreed that "could" is a very polite form of expressing someone's expectations of other person's future activity. Rather than saying the phrase like: "Would you please come here," which possesses something of imperative mode, saying: "Could you please come here," contents some sort of uncertainty whether the request will be fulfilled. It is recommended to use "could" in speaking since it shows an expectation but does not obligate the other party to do what was asked (Fowler 187).

A very good phraseologism that means "to bear a responsibility for something in the case when it goes wrong, often implying someone other's fault" goes like this: "to carry a can." The Fowler's usage dictionary agrees on the idea of accepting this phraseologism in the everyday speaking for the phrase bears American roots of the nineteenth century (Fowler 187).

which are quite confusing, and mismatches them in his writings or speaking. The controversy of these words usage is in the fact that both express the idea of giving or requesting permission, but at the same time the word "can " is more concerned with somebody's individual ability to perform a task, while "may" is a more formal way of dealing with the matter and asks for another party's permission to do something. I would like to stress here that even though both "can" and "

Some common words found in the essay are:
Collegiate Dictionary, English English's, , usage dictionaries, spoken language, fowler 187, transitive verb,

Approximate Word count = 1245
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English