Re: Fiat Lux

On Fri, Jun 22, 2001 at 07:54:00AM -0400, Shreyas Sampat wrote:
> >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.
I was referring mainly to a situation in which one's parent says "Come on,
let's get going!" when the parent actually means the *child* should get
going. :)

--
Eric Christopherson | Rakko