On Sun, Mar 02, 2008 at 08:49:29AM -0800, Lan Barnes wrote:
One of the real failings of spell checkers is the inability to pick up compound words spelled separately, like "cannot" being munged into "can not" (almost[0] always wrong).
[0] Actually, according to my 5th form English teacher, Mr. Armstrong (who knew a hell of a lot more than I ever have), _always_ wrong.
Other people will have had English teachers who taught that 'cannot' was wrong. The qualifications to be an elementary school English teacher are quite different than what might be expected for someone to each "grammar". I wouldn't put an overly large amount of credence on something learned from a single teacher in elementary school, especially if it was just spoken. Teachers will often emphasize things that annoy them, not that are wrong. I think the best example is the using a preposition to end a sentence with. Sometimes, a preposition at the end of a sentence is ungrammatical, but usually it is fine <http://grammartips.homestead.com/prepositions2.html> Both forms, 'can not' and 'cannot' are valid, they just mean slight different things. I cannot change the world. implies that I don't have the ability to change the world. I can not change the world. implies that I could change the world if I wanted, but I also can decide not to. Most occurrences warrant the 'cannot' form. David -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
