{"id":72810,"date":"2019-11-11T05:54:43","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T05:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=72810"},"modified":"2019-11-11T05:54:43","modified_gmt":"2019-11-11T05:54:43","slug":"special-uses-of-must-and-cannot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/special-uses-of-must-and-cannot\/","title":{"rendered":"Special Uses of Must And Cannot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Must<\/strong> can be used to express the conclusion that something is certain or highly probable.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If A is older than B, and B is older is than C, then A must be older than C.<\/li>\n<li>She must have a problem \u2013 she looks worried.<\/li>\n<li>There is the doorbell. It must be your Dad.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To express certainty in questions, we usually use <strong>can<\/strong>. Note that <strong>must<\/strong> is not used in questions with this meaning.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is the doorbell. Who can it be?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cannot<\/strong> can be used in negative clauses to say that something is certainly not the case.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It can\u2019t be the postman at the door. He has already been.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Need not<\/strong> can be used to say that something is not necessarily so. Must not is not used to express this meaning.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2018Look at those tracks. That must be a fox.\u2019 \u2018It needn\u2019t necessarily be \u2013 it could be a dog.\u2019<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The structure <strong>must have + past participle<\/strong> is used to express conclusions about the past.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u2018Somebody phoned while you were sleeping.\u2019 \u2018That must have been Peter.\u2019<\/li>\n<li>She must have reached home by now.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Must can be used to express the conclusion that something is certain or highly probable. If A is older than B, and B is older is than C, then A must be older than&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1848,1626,1849],"class_list":["post-72810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speaking","tag-cannot","tag-must","tag-need-not"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72811,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72810\/revisions\/72811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}