Pavitra wrote:
>[We really should canonize CAN NOT as a synonym of CANNOT, though.]
I suggest not doing so. "can not" is a confusing turn of phrase,
best avoided. Where "not" is a separate word in these phrases, there
are two possible things it could be negating. Consider:
x MUST NOT y = x MUST not(y)
x SHALL NOT y = x SHALL not(y)
(which are synonymous) but
x MAY NOT y = not(x MAY y)
For possibility, we have the clear
x CANNOT y = not(x CAN y)
so let's not have a synonym that looks like it might be the other type
of negation.
-zefram
