Re: Ask not what your country can do for you

In article <455DDC95.4547@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Ron Hardin <rhhardin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

``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.

Not having listened to the speech recently, I can't comment on that, but
I can ask whether you have? It's not what is in a text but how it's
spoken that's important here.

--
Mary Loomer (aka Erilar)
----------------------------------------
Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tatige Unwissenheit.

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(There's nothing worse than ignorance in action.)

Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.airstreamcomm.net/~erilarlo


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