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can't help
Idioms and Phrases
Also, can't help but or cannot but . Be unable to do otherwise. For example, I can't help thinking that the keys will turn up eventually , or He couldn't help but believe he would pass the entrance exam , or I cannot but applaud his efforts . The first of these phrases, can't help , is always followed by a present participle whereas the others take an infinitive. [c. 1700]Example Sentences
I can’t help but wonder what Castelveto and Evelyn, two of the patriarchs of salad orthodoxy, would make of today’s sweet salad renaissance — those jiggly, kaleidoscopic creations that, against all odds, can be as unexpectedly sophisticated as they are nostalgic.
And I can’t help but think that if Giacomo Castelvetro and John Evelyn — those early defenders of salad purity — were handed a bowl of this, still cold from the fridge, they might pause.
She and Luthen also share a ruthless devotion to pragmatism, although he applies that to the worthiness of strangers’ lives, whereas the good senator can’t help but sell out her loved ones.
“I can’t help but see a corollary to how Trump thought it was so important during his first administration to keep meat fully stocked in grocery stores,” she said.
But the dispute can’t help but hobble Boeing’s efforts to compete with the European consortium Airbus, which already has a leg up over Boeing in the China market.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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