Ask not what your country can do for you

``And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for
you - ask what you can do for your country.''

I suspect Kennedy read that wrong, with the verb, in effect, ``ask not.''

A speechwriter is likely to have written ``ask, not what your country
can do for you, but what you can do for your country.''

I think Kennedy got in trouble reading it as ``ask not.''

Kennedy then would have to remedy the grammar with the dash. Strictly,
it still doesn't make sense, but you can see what was meant.

His is a much lamer line.

--
Ron Hardin
rhhardin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.
.

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