• Lemminary@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      I thought it was quite straightforward. “She cannot sing” isn’t the same as “she cannot sing well”. If I say “she can’t cook”, you’d imagine that her cooking is terrible because she lacks basic skills, but if I say “she can’t cook well”, you’d probably find her cooking tolerable because it’s understood that she can do it. It’s an interesting bit of backtracking.

        • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          Now it’s akin to writing a “scholastic research paper on anthropological communication” to point it out. Oh, sure. I thought you “weren’t aware” that a phrase could be interpreted any other way and look at you go flexing that fivehead. But I’m the one with an “astounding ability” to be selective about interpreting things. Right, I’m the one doing that.