You are not skillful, like me.

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Marius Hancu - 13 Jan 2010 11:52 GMT

1. You are not skillful, like me.
2. You are not skillful, as I am.

Does any of the above ever mean:
"neither you nor I am skillful?"
or
"neither you nor I are skillful?"

My feeling is that they always mean:
"I am skillful and you're not."
--
Thanks.
Marius Hancu

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Peter Duncanson (BrE) - 13 Jan 2010 12:22 GMT

>1. You are not skillful, like me.
>2. You are not skillful, as I am.
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>My feeling is that they always mean:
>"I am skillful and you're not."

1 is potentially ambiguous. It could mean "You are not skillful, and I
am the same": "Neither of us is skillful".

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Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)

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Marius Hancu - 13 Jan 2010 12:24 GMT

On Jan 13, 7:22 am, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net>
wrote:

> >1. You are not skillful, like me.
> >2. You are not skillful, as I am.
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> 1 is potentially ambiguous. It could mean "You are not skillful, and I
> am the same": "Neither of us is skillful".

How about the 2nd?
--
Thanks.
Marius Hancu

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HVS - 13 Jan 2010 12:28 GMT

On 13 Jan 2010, Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote

>> 1. You are not skillful, like me.
>> 2. You are not skillful, as I am.
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> 1 is potentially ambiguous. It could mean "You are not skillful,
> and I am the same": "Neither of us is skillful".

I think the potential ambiguity is quite far removed from the realm
of actual usage, though: I can't imagine any native speaker using
that construction to mean "neither of us is skillful".

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Cheers, Harvey
CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed

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James Hogg - 13 Jan 2010 12:23 GMT

> 1. You are not skillful, like me. 2. You are not skillful, as I am.
>
> Does any of the above ever mean: "neither you nor I am skillful?" or
> "neither you nor I are skillful?"

To get that meaning while retaining the original words, you would have
to change the word order of no. 1:

Like me, you are not skilful.

Not that I would recommend you to say that.

> My feeling is that they always mean: "I am skillful and you're not."

Your feeling is right.

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James

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Athel Cornish-Bowden - 13 Jan 2010 12:29 GMT

> 1. You are not skillful, like me.
> 2. You are not skillful, as I am.
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> My feeling is that they always mean:
> "I am skillful and you're not."

They're ambiguous. If you need to remove the ambiguity you'd say

You are not skillful, unlike me

for your preferred meaning, or

Like me, you are not skillful

for the other. Otherwise you need to rely on contextr-.

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athel

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John O'Flaherty - 13 Jan 2010 17:43 GMT

>1. You are not skillful, like me.
>2. You are not skillful, as I am.
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>My feeling is that they always mean:
>"I am skillful and you're not."

1 is ambiguous, especially with the comma. It sounds like a rearranged
"Like me, you are not skillful.", which would certainly mean that we
are similar. If 1 is spoken as shown it could carry either meaning,
depending on the stress on the words "you", "skillful", and "me", and
on the pitch contour of the sentence.

2 is a little unnatural. If I heard it, I'd have to ask the speaker
what they meant.

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John

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

You are not skillful, like me.