Can’t Is Not a Contraction (and other options)

Some of y’all, being a hard-to-please bunch, were apparently less than impressed by the planned title of our governor’s long awaited memoir, “Can’t is Not An Option.” As Tim said:

“Can’t is Not An Option”. I guess her editor and publisher don’t not believe in double negatives. Essentially the title means “Can is an Option.” More Sarah Palindromisms, inventing the language as you speak…

OK, so let’s see if we can do better. Here are some, for want of a better word, options:

  • Failure Is Not An Option — The original, as spoken by Ed Harris as Gene Kranz in “Apollo 13,” works a lot better. More compelling. Better use of the English language. Of course, it doesn’t work for Nikki Haley. In fact, it’s about as wildly inappropriate as you can get. The phrase epitomizes the can-do spirit of a man leading a bunch of government employees determined to work together to accomplish something remarkable. No way Nikki would want any part of that. In Kranz’ place, she would have insisted that NASA was the problem, not the solution, and would be going on about how the space agency needed to be run like a business as the spacecraft ran out of oxygen.
  • Can’t Is Not a Doctrine — I like it, but I think she would disagree.
  • Can’t Do Cooperation
  • Can’t is Not a Contraction
  • Can I Have a Conniption?
  • Canned Heat, Fried Hockey Boogie
  • Can It, Knothead Unction

OK, so I’m running out of actual ideas here, although I don’t see that necessarily as a disqualification.

What do y’all have?

I’m just trying to pass the time here. It’s SO hard waiting until January, when the book comes out.

14 thoughts on “Can’t Is Not a Contraction (and other options)

  1. `Kathryn Fenner

    “‘Can’t’ is not an option” is what I believe was meant. For once, fewer quotation marks than required.

    Try “our” hot dog’s.

    Reply
  2. Doug Ross

    Can’t Get No Taxisfaction

    I Can’t Can’t but Sheheen Can’t Can
    subtitle (“Scoreboard!”)

    Sari, I Can’t Do It All!

    Reply
  3. Norm Ivey

    The opportunity to opt out of singing Gregorian chants could be called the “Cantus Nada Option .”

    Reply
  4. James Cross

    _Failure is not an option_ is the title of Gene Kranz’s autobiography published in 2000 and of the History Channel’s documentary on the U.S. space program in 2003. (Probaby the reason the publisher did not go with that title but came up with something *close* to it).

    Interestingly enough, Kranz never actually said it — a fact he readily acknowledges. According to Jerry Bostic, the Flight Dynamics Officer for that mission:

    “As far as the expression ‘Failure is not an option’, you are correct that Kranz never used that term. In preparation for the movie, the script writers, Al Reinart and Bill Broyles, came down to Clear Lake to interview me on ‘What are the people in Mission Control really like?’ One of their questions was ‘Weren’t there times when everybody, or at least a few people, just panicked?’ My answer was ‘No, when bad things happened, we just calmly laid out all the options, and failure was not one of them. We never panicked, and we never gave up on finding a solution.’ I immediately sensed that Bill Broyles wanted to leave and assumed that he was bored with the interview. Only months later did I learn that when they got in their car to leave, he started screaming, ‘That’s it! That’s the tag line for the whole movie, Failure is not an option. Now we just have to figure out who to have say it.’ Of course, they gave it to the Kranz character, and the rest is history.”
    [Quote from http://www.spaceacts.com/notanoption.htm%5D

    Reply
  5. aesop

    Channeling the hunt for red october here…

    “There’s very little room in Nikki’s heart for anyone but Nikki.”

    Reply
  6. Scout

    I looked it up too, to make sure it meant what I thought it did, and found it somewhere though maybe not an accepted source. I know it’s an awkward word and maybe not an official one, but I thought that just added to the effect.

    So Doug…

    & Rockettes Can Can

    What is Taxisfaction…a cabbie’s union?

    Reply
  7. Doug Ross

    @scout

    Taxisfaction (noun) : The warm feeling one gets when cutting taxes.

    Ex: “Nikki Haley’s taxisfaction was at an all time high when she heard her proposal to cut the income tax rate to 0.0001% would result in widows and orphans being thrown into the street in record numbers.”

    Reply

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