Re: Fiat Lux

On Fri, 22 Jun 2001, 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.
Listen to impatient parents trying to get their dawdling kids on
the move: "Let's go!" Morphologically 1st person, but solely
directed at the second person.

Padraic.

>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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