Tuesday, December 22, 2015

grammaticality - "You just can't" vs. "you can't just "



I'm a bit confused about this. Which expression is correct?




You can't just do that.





or




You just can't do that.




I'm trying to say:




You can't just bash an ideology because of what someone has said/done.




Answer



As with only, one should exercise care in carefully placing just. In your sentence, you want:




  • You can’t bash an ideology just because of what someone has said/done.



Because you want to be perfectly clear that just applies to because.




In the original pair of question, this one:




  • You can’t just do that.



Applies just to do, whereas this one:




  • You just can’t do that.




Applies just to can’t.


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