Find it hard to explain, can someone help?

AceOfSpades

2008-09-14 7:18 pm

A foreign friend asked if it's right (grammatically) to say "No matter what I do, I'll get it right". I find something amiss here but just couldn't explain what's wrong. "no matter" somehow negates it to be right.... or was it a double negative grammar that's all so confusing?

I told him it would be better to say " I'll do whatever it takes to do it right"... but the big question is what wrong with his technically?

回答 (1)

[匿名]

2008-09-14 9:57 pm

✔ 最佳答案

This is perhaps as much logic as language.

"No matter what I do" implies that I can or will do many different things. It literally means, "It does not matter what I do."

Well, if you can do something rightly or wrongly, then it MUST matter what you do.

Now if he said, "No matter what, I'll get it right," that would be correct, because the implication is NOT "No matter what I do," but "No matter what it takes," I'll get it right.

A couple of words change the meaning.

I hope that helps.

參考: I'm a linguist and a deep thinker! :o)

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