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

[Richard O'Keefe]

One common source of confusion is phrasal verbs.
(I am quite upset that my now-legally-adult daughters
were never introduced to the term "phrasal verb" at
school; it's as if someone in the Ministry of Education
interpreted the title in an Orwellian way.)
"Look up the name in a table." (Verb and particle are two words.)
"Look the name up in a table." (Two words, same meaning.)
"Seek the name in a lookup table." (One word.)
"How many lookups did that need?" (One word.)
The rule is: verb => 2 words, noun or adjective => 1 word.

I've always wondered about the connection between English
phrasal verbs and German verbs with separable prefixes; so
many of the latter have English translations that are
phrasal verbs with the corresponding preposition as particle.


On 30 July 2018 at 21:02, Raimo Niskanen <
raimo+erlang-questions@REDACTED> wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 30, 2018 at 10:49:14AM +0200, empro2@REDACTED wrote:
> > I would like to apologise:
> >
> > * if my original post was not perceived to be humourously
> >   rhetorical; my English is much worse than it might look.
> >
> > * for too many too detailed replies. I was switched into
> >   argumentation (not argument!) mode by the unfortunate
> >   coincidence of an overdose of surprise, the confusing
> >   nature of language matters (negation especially), two
> >   years of "what? ah, mere typo" and too hot weather.
> >   It might also have to do with the then waxing blood moon.
> >   (I wonder why there is dog hair all over my place
> >   now ... ;-)
> >
> > Glad that two people have used the word "fun" in this thread
>
> :-)
>
> I would also like to apologise that it took so many mails before I got a
> grip on the actual problem!..
>
> As I recently tried to motivate - splitting vs. concatenating words is one
> aspect of English I think we Swedes has got special problems with, because
> of related problems in Swedish...
>
> >
> > Michael
> >
> > --
> >
> > "Oh no! It should be poetry not prose"
> >
> >       – Pet Shop Boys. _It must be obvious_
>
> --
>
> / Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB
> _______________________________________________
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>
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