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The title of this post is far from being a newly-created phrase; it must
have been reproduced hundreds of times by now, precisely because it is attested
in one of the variants of the biblical text (Ecclesiastes 1:8-10):
‘8 All things are wearisome, more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. 9 What has
been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new
under the sun. 10 Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is
something new”?’
At this point
it’s absolutely necessary to say that I chose it because it is suggestive for
the post, and not because I intend to start a religious commentary – a saying
that has been adopted by innumerable peoples, and offering a philosophical view
of life. Indeed, rather than something new, it is the human being who registers
that thing as new. But how can this be? Well, I suppose that it’s a matter of
generations: growing up and learning more and more makes each and every one of
us a part of the Big Architecture, the evolution of the human race.
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The World Wide
Web is saturated with blogs and videos, games and exercises, you name it. What
I saw as necessary for an audience starts losing momentum, and this goes hand
in hand with the need for a suggestive post number. So, there’s very little
that hasn’t been said about, say, modal verbs, and they are indispensable for
you to develop text (understanding text as
spoken or written), which is what we’re about to do.
As I’m sure I mentioned
once, it is absolutely surprising that, of all the modal verbs in English, can should be the most frequently used
and, at the same time, the one whose patterns of use should be most complex and
deceiving. Most pre-intermediate and intermediate students of English know that
it is useful to express possibility in the Present; and, since quite a few textbooks
– while trying to simplify “the bloody grammar” – call it <the present form>,
as they do with any notional verb of the language, the verb with all its idiosyncratic
properties is finally understood as a kind of Infinitive e.g., to play - I play; therefore *to
can- I can follows naturally. Furthermore, if I play has the Simple Past tense I played, then I could [DO]
cannot be but the Simple Past tense of can.
Well, yes, it is: but only in one of its
meanings.
First, some explanations: CAN & COULD explanations
Then, a bit of practice: CAN & COULD exercises
Of course I'll be waiting for questions, because I'm sure there are some - albeit without a voice.
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Answers to exercises
Exercise B
1 couldn’t – 2 managed
to – 3 couldn’t – 4 couldn’t 5 managed to – 6 could – 7 managed to – 8 could 9 –
could
Exercise F (context)
a I could speak,
I even managed to pass, I couldn’t understand, I could say, I managed to have
b Have you
managed to get hold of , couldn’t get hold of, couldn’t get through, Did you
manage to, couldn’t hear, managed to explain, could see
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