coordination - "...We can only lose, and our love become a funeral pyre." - distributed modal verb or subjunctive?

From The Doors, Light My Fire. The lines are:
"Try now, we can only lose
And our love become a funeral pyre."

I would never hold their lyrics up as great writing, but I have always wondered exactly what this means. My understanding is:

"Try now, we can only lose
And our love (can only) become a funeral pyre."

So using a conjunction to link a different subject and a different main verb sharing the same modal verb. Like, e.g.,

"The machine would stop and the bell ring." or
"I will go and he replace me."

Which don't sound like things anyone would say. I have, however, heard things like:

I need to nod my head and you to hit it. or
I want to eat and you to sleep.

Or is it a form of subjunctive? But it doesn't seem to fit any other example of a subjunctive.
As a native English speaker, for many years I just understood he was saying "...and our love (can only) become a funeral pyre," as in, that's the worst that could happen, which is better than not trying any sex or drugs at all. But I can't come up with a single other example of a conjunction being used to distribute a modal between two different subjects with two different main verbs.

british english - "If something were" or "If something was" in the 2nd conditional?

I have the following sentence in the draft of my latest paper:

No arbitrage would be introduced if the project were traded.

Is this version correct? Or should it be:

No arbitrage would be introduced if the project was traded.

What are the rules here?

auxiliary verbs - What are the following words called: Am, Is, Are, Was, Were, Be, Being, Been?

Am, Is, Are, Was, Were, Be, Being, Been

What are the above words called? I think someone called them auxiliary verbs.

Edit: When I learned them, my curriculum called them "State of Being verbs" or just "Being verbs".

Answer

The words you cited are all forms of the verb “be”, which is also known as a copula or linking verb.

The term auxiliary verb applies to verbs, such as forms of be, have, and do, that conjoin with another verb to add syntactic or semantic information, such as grammatical aspects like the progressive aspect or perfective aspect:

• progressive aspect: be + present participle (e.g. am walking)


• perfective aspect: have + past participle (e.g. have walked)

Verbs such as will and shall combine to indicate future tense or conditional tense.

pronunciation - Why is the word watch pronounced differently from words like patch, latch, match, catch, and batch?

Why doesn't watch rhyme with catch, batch, latch, patch, and match?

Etymology and pronunciation of arch-, archi-

The prefix arch-, archi- “chief, principal; extreme, ultra; early, primitive,” derives from Latinized Greek arkh-, arkhi-, the combining form of arkhos “chief.” Usually, arch- is pronounced like “arch” (ɑrtʃ), and archi- sounds like “ark” (ɑrkɪ), although archangel (ɑrkeɪndʒəl) is a notable exception.

Is there an etymological or other reason for pronouncing the two prefixes differently? Did they perhaps enter English at different times? Likewise, is there any pattern to which nouns use arch- (e.g., archenemy, archfiend) versus archi- (archiepiscopal, architect)? Why is archangel an exception to the pronunciation rule?

Answer

An Etymological Dictionary of the English Language (1888) by Walter W. Skeat answers all your questions at once.

ARCH-, chief; almost solely used as a prefix. (L.--Gk.) Shak. has 'my worthy arch and patron,' Lear, ii. I.61; but the word is harshly
used, and better kept as a mere prefix. In arch-bishop, we have a
word in very early use; A.S. erce-bisceop, arce-bisceop (Bosworth).
Thus arch- is to be rightly regarded as descended from A.S. arce-,
which was borrowed from Lat. archi- (in archi-episcopus), and this
again from Gk. άρχι in
άρχιεπίσκοπος,
an archbishop. Gk. άρχός to be first;
cf. Gk. άρχή, beginning. Cf. Skt. arh, to be

worthy; Curtius, i.233. The form of the prefix being once fixed, it
was used for other words. Der. arch-bishop, arch-deacon, arch-duke,
arch-duchy, &c. In the word arch-angel, the prefix is taken
directly from the Greek; see Archi-.
ARCHI-, chief; used as a prefix. (L.--Gk.) The older form is arch-, which (as explained under Arch-) was a modification of A.S. arce-, from Lat. archi-. The form archi- is of later use,
but borrowed from the Lat. directly. Gk.
άρχί-, prefix. See Arch-. Der. archi-episcopal, archi-episcopy, archi-diaconal. In the word arch-angel, the final i of the prefix is dropped before the vowel following. In the word arche-type, the prefix takes the form
arche-.

Another edition of this dictionary (revised in 1910; reprinted in 2005) adds a couple of comments to the explanation.

ARCH- <...> In the word arch-angel, the ch remained hard (as k) in the Romance languages, on account of the a following; cf. Ital. archangelo, Span. arcangel.
ARCHI- <...> The same prefix also forms part of the words archi-mandrite, archi-pelago, archi-tect, archi-trave.

pronouns - Using 'her' vs. 'its' to refer to a country

I am currently reading Liddell Hart's "History of the Second World War", and I'm wondering why he sometimes uses her/she when talking about Japan. In my understanding of English, it should be its or their (if you want to refer to the Japanese people).

For instance:

From 1931 onward the Japanese were aggressively engaged in expanding their footholds on the Asiatic mainland at the expense of the Chinese, ...

makes sense to me, but:

It is remarkable that she deferred striking for more than four month, while trying to negotiate a lifting of the oil embargo

or

Until early in 1941 Japan's plan in case of war against the United States was to use her main fleet in the southern Pacific in conjunction with an attack on the Philippine Islands, ...

does not.

Can somebody explain why Japan is female, and are there more countries for which her should be used?

Answer

Historically, "her" was commonly used as a pronoun for not only women, but also for both countries and ships (e.g. sailing vessels).

However, that usage has more or less fallen out of favor, and instead "its" has become the preferred pronoun. Nevertheless, you'll still see "she" or "her" used depending on the preferences of the author.

http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/01/is-a-country-a-she-or-an-it.html

grammatical number - Is it correct to say: These are not homework?

A teacher sent home a list of assignments with a cover letter explaining, "These are not homework."

"This is not homework," or "These pages are not homework," sound equally normal to me, but "These are not homework," just sounds weird. Is it correct grammar?

...

I don't agree that the question: 'Agreement in “[Singular Noun] Is/Are [Plural Noun]”?' describes this specific usage. In "These are not homework," the word "These" is not a singular noun. It's a plural pronoun. I suspect that some of the problem is that the missing noun is implied to the reader only by the physical presence of other documents, and not contextually from the surrounding content of the cover letter itself.

Answer

Can't a noun in plural form be complemented with a noun in singular form? Of course it can. Here are some examples:

These workers make a lot of mistakes when they work since they are
new to this job. They are not the main reason we are losing money – the state of the market is.

and:

These people are my family.

and also:

We are a team!

If the above sentences sound grammatically correct to you, there's no reason why your teacher's sentence would be any different.
The quote you provided is perfectly fine and makes the same sense:

These (things you need to do) are not (the) homework (you are
obligated to do).