Talk:can't help

See WT:TR#can't help July 2007 for earlier discussion about this entry. -- Algrif 17:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Usage note: "Only negative forms..."

Does this cover the acceptable "can anyone help...?" Equinox ◑ 16:19, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

@Equinox: page 60 of the CambridgeGEL reads

Polarity-sensitive items
It is not, however, simply a matter of negative vs positive contexts: any longer, for example, is found in interrogatives (Will you be needing me any longer ? ) and the complement of conditional if (If you stay any longer you will miss your bus). These clauses have it in common with negatives that they are not being used to make a positive assertion: we use the term non-affirmative to cover these (and certain other) clauses. Any longer thus occurs in non-affirmative contexts, and  any longer is a nonaffirmative item, using this as an alternative to negatively-oriented polarity-sensitive item (see page 822). 

Page 1232 reads

Non-affirmative can help also occurs with but + bare infinitival: compare I couldn’t help overhearing / couldn’t help but overhear what you were saying.

--Backinstadiums (talk) 09:24, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

@Backinstadiums: True, true. Thanks. It does raise the issue of how best to cover these things in dictionaries though, since can't help evidently doesn't really represent can X help... Equinox ◑ 04:31, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Equinox: So the following approach is wrong then, because it's "Non-affirmative can help"?

v.tr. 3. To refrain from; avoid or resist. Used with can or cannot: couldn't help laughing. 
https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=help

--Backinstadiums (talk) 06:33, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Backinstadiums: That suggests you could say something like "I can always help laughing when I hear bad jokes", which seems wrong to me. Equinox ◑ 06:56, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

@Equinox: It refers to sentences such as She never does more than she can help. --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:27, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Equinox: OED's 11th meaning https://www.oed.com/oed2/00104576 --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:32, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

can help

If can help is not an idiom, what does help mean Don’t change it any more than you can help? or Change it as little as you can help

Is this case similar to could care less? --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:47, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

The OED notes, cannot is replaced idiomatically by can after a negative expressed or implied. The OED lists four 19c. examples of this construction, including these: Your name shall occur again as little as I can help—Cardinal Newman, 1864; I did not trouble myself more than I could help —C. H. Spurgeon, 1879. Fowler ( 1926) objected to such constructions as illogical, but they are an idiomatic part of English. --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:21, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

when the context has already established the use of can't help.

Is this a more general linguistic process?

MURTAUGH: Find out who bought it for her.  Her sugar daddy. 
COP #2: Take some looking into.
MURTAUGH: So look.
http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/lethalweapon.html

--Backinstadiums (talk) 18:14, 28 July 2021 (UTC)