[erlang-questions] 'cannot' /= 'can not'

[Richard O'Keefe]

The normal English word is "can't".
In primary school I was taught not to use such informal stuff in writing
but to always use "cannot" expect in reported speech.
It is certainly a word.  Collins say it is one of the top 1000 words.
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cannot
"can not" is occasionally ambiguous (less so in speech,
where "CAN not" = "cannot" = "can't", "can NOT" is the other reading).
To be honest, "can not" grates on this native speaker of English.
It's on a par with "precise" used as a verb.
Stick with "cannot".
If you have a copy of the 'style' and 'diction' programs, you
probably want to add "can not" to the diction list of things not to write.


On 27 July 2018 at 19:52, Raimo Niskanen <
raimo+erlang-questions@REDACTED> wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 26, 2018 at 03:11:47PM +0200, Raimo Niskanen wrote:
> > Please have a look at and evaluate GitHub PR#1891:
> >
> >   https://github.com/erlang/otp/pull/1891
>
> Fun story:  A coworker just vaguely remembered that the technical writer(s)
> we had working on the documentation in late 2016 maybe made this kind of
> changes, and surely enough they did change "can not" into "cannot".
>
> This did not stick in all developers' memory, though, since at least 6 of
> us has re-introduced "can not"s after that.
>
> It is actually a hard one, I think especially for Swedes, since we have an
> ongoing language war/debate about people splitting Swedish words that
> should be concatenated due to influence from English so the safe bet for a
> Swede is that in proper English it is probably not one word.
>
> I asked around me and the most common reaction is: "cannot" - is that even
> a proper word? I would have written "can not"!
>
> And this is from people born in the 60:s through the 90:s, at least.
>
> So it will take a while for this detail to become common truth, at
> least in Sweden...
>
> We will work on it, but it will take time.
>
> Best Regards
> / Raimo
>
>
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:02:43AM +0200, empro2@REDACTED wrote:
> > > This is only the most recent occurrence that finally
> > > makes me write this:
> > >
> > > <quote>
> > > [erlang-questions] Patch package OTP 20.3.8.3 released
> > > Tue, 24 Jul 2018 09:13:22 +0200
> > > [...]
> > > Note! The kernel-5.4.3.2 application can *not* be applied
> > >       independently of other applications on an arbitrary
> > >       OTP 20 installation.
> > > [...]
> > > </quote>
> > >
> > > If it can not be applied independently then it can also be
> > > applied independently - which, in this case, is
> > > probably not what is meant. But this is guesswork, relying
> > > on the reader already knowing the meaning of what is
> > > being said, rendering the saying it much less useful.
> > >
> > > Modals are a mess (spoken languages are, after ceturies of
> > > abuse like the one discussed in "[erlang-questions] Orelse
> > > and andalso as short-hand for case"), but they convey
> > > critical meaning.
> > >
> > > Nine(?) of ten "can not"s in the Erlang docs must be
> > > "cannot" to convey the correct meaning. Reading the docs has
> > > already made me convert every "can not" I read into
> > > "cannot" - I mean *every*, not only those in the Erlang
> > > docs - and then back again (only about 1 of 10 in the
> > > Erlang docs). This is a real, and substantial, waste of
> > > post-orbital CPU cycles; not the conversion itself, but the
> > > distraction from understanding whatever meaning the author
> > > actually tries to get across.
> > >
> > > If someone with authority (and authorisation) could and
> > > would please write and run a script and convert all "can
> > > not" -> "cannot" in all OTP strings, binaries and comments?
> > > This will introduce errors, as there actually are a few,
> > > rare correct "can not"s, but it will correct about 9 times
> > > more of wrong ones that really need to be "cannot".
> > >
> > > At least in the doc strings?
> > >
> > > Please?
> > >
> > > Michael
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Time is not money, but money is time: life-time people have
> > > spent transforming their environment.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > --
> >
> > / Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB
> > _______________________________________________
> > erlang-questions mailing list
> > erlang-questions@REDACTED
> > http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
>
> --
>
> / Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB
> _______________________________________________
> erlang-questions mailing list
> erlang-questions@REDACTED
> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
>
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