The millennial byword “I can’t even” — acclimated to announce calm or shock — was not invented by underemployed 20-somethings active at home but in fact by agreeable abundant Bob Dylan.
The allegedly forward-thinking announcement came during a 1966 recording affair of “She’s Your Lover Now” for the anthology “Blonde on Blonde.”
The date was Jan. 21 and Dylan was recording in Columbia’s New York studio, arena with associates of The Hawks, who after became acclaimed on their own as The Band.
Dylan was growing fed up with The Hawks’ performance, according to linguist Ben Zimmer.
“Aw, it’s ugly,” he grouses.
“I can’t. I can’t even ...”
Music analyzer Chris Willmanmade agenda of the moment in a section for Billboard in November.“Did Bob Dylan just ad-lib the 21st aeon adage ‘I can’t even’? I anticipate he did!” he writes.
The blow is on “The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12,” an all-embracing 19-hour, 18-CD recording of flat sessions and outtakes appear in November.
Even if it was allegedly coined aback in the 1960s, “I can’t even” rose to acceptance as a section of Internet dictionary over the accomplished 5 years.
Like the quintessentially millennial overuse of the word, “literally,” “I can’t even” has become a byword that anybody loves to abhorrence and it has spawned affluence of anticipate pieces, both acknowledging and opposing its accepted use.
"If you acquisition yourself in a adverse position area you can’t even, I appeal you to apathetic down and allege with abundant acknowledgment so that your thoughts are complete and not just alternating fragments," wrote Devin Largent on Thought Catalog.
The byword has added variants, including, “I actually just can’t,” and, “I accept absent the adeptness to can.”
But the grandaddy of them all, it seems, is Mr. Tambourine Man himself.
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