Re: Fiat Lux
From: | Shreyas Sampat <nsampat@...> |
Date: | Friday, June 22, 2001, 11:54 |
>I must disagree. To me, its base or "literal" meaning is more of a
>suggestion than a command; thus, "Let's go out to eat" and "Why don't we go
>out to eat?" have about the same force. Of course, in some contexts it does
>function as a command (sometimes even as a 2nd person command!)
Interesting; I've never seen this form as a 2nd person command. More often
IME, 2nd person polite commands are phrased like "You could go have some
food", or "Why don't you have something to eat?" Sometimes, we
see "There's lots of food on the table", or "It would be nice if someone
were to mow the lawn", which last only works if the person commanding is in
some form of authority.
---
Shreyas
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