Does it mean that it’s not a good book or it’s a really really good book?
Best Answer
“I can't recommend the book enough” is somewhat ambiguous. It might mean the speaker likes the book tremendously, beyond his or her ability to say how much. Or it might mean the speaker cannot recommend the book.
A similar sentence, “I can’t recommend him highly enough”, is referred to at literalminded.wordpress.com as a “carefully ambiguous phrasing”.
The following, in which most sentences exhibit similar ambiguities, is a classic example of a recommendation that may look positive but is indeed quite negative. It is quoted from a Deliberate Ambiguities webpage at www.cut-the-knot.org.
You write to ask me for my opinion of X, who has applied for a position in your department. I cannot recommend him too highly nor say enough good things about him. There is no other student of mine with whom I can adequately compare him. His thesis is the sort of work you don't expect to see nowadays and in it he has clearly demonstrated his complete capabilities. The amount of material he knows will surprise you. You will indeed be fortunate if you can get him to work for you.
It's a attempt to shorten the phrase "cooked in some fancy way that a chef might offer in a restaurant, rather than just boiled as a basic dish."
No, it isn't a common term -- I'd call it a neologism, or possibly a term used only by restaurant reviewers. But the "cheffed-up" formulation would probably be understood in this context by most native speakers, by analogy with "prettied up", "tidied up", "polished up" and other common phrases that use "-ed up" to mean "made more so".
Newspaper writers do have a long tradition of writing in a compressed "telegraphic" style, in an attempt to pack as much information as possible into as little space as possible. That does tend to produce phrases which are hard to understand until you have some experience with this style. Don't assume that the New York Times, or any other newspaper, is a good example of formal English.
As others have mentioned, "would" is an expression of a hypothetical desire and "wish" is usually for an unlikely or impossible desire.
However, "would" is used to express a wish in the future tense too. In this case, you say you wish something would happen because it hasn't happened yet, but it continues to be possible.
This is what's shown in your screenshot example and it's called the "Subjunctive Mood" in English.
University of Washington has some good Subjunctive Mood examples that demonstrate when to use "I wish ___ would ___" in your sentence structure.
When the main clause expresses a wish, you use the past tense of the verb to express the subjunctive mood:
I wish I knew how to proceed. Not: I wish I know how to proceed.
That's natural enough, but when you have a wish sentence in which the verb is a compound constructed with a form of to be, you always use 'were' to communicate a present-tense wish.
I wish I were going. Not: I wish I was going.
If you want to express a past-tense wish, use the past perfect form:
I wish she had invited me. Not: I wish she invited me. I wish they had hired you. Not: I wish they hired you.
If you want to express a future-tense wish, use would instead of will.
I wish he would arrive on time. Not: I wish he will arrive on time.
Best Answer
“I can't recommend the book enough” is somewhat ambiguous. It might mean the speaker likes the book tremendously, beyond his or her ability to say how much. Or it might mean the speaker cannot recommend the book.
A similar sentence, “I can’t recommend him highly enough”, is referred to at literalminded.wordpress.com as a “carefully ambiguous phrasing”.
The following, in which most sentences exhibit similar ambiguities, is a classic example of a recommendation that may look positive but is indeed quite negative. It is quoted from a Deliberate Ambiguities webpage at www.cut-the-knot.org.