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mjlee

> I'm sure I'm not the only person with naked pictures of my wife.

I'm not completely convinced that says what you want it to.

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Didn't she possibly have previous partners?

Presumably she wasn’t his wife then. But also people have various arrangements so I’m not here to shame.

I don't even have nude photos of my wife. The only person who might would be the NSA contractor assigned to watch her.

what function does the word "even" perform in this sentence?

It's used to emphasize the concept that if anyone would have nudes of my wife, it would be me, her husband. Here's another example of "even" used as an emphasizing word.

>I don't know how to answer that.

>Even I don't know how to answer that.

Hope that helps you with your ESL tests!

The parallel to the construction you used before would be "I don't even know how to answer that" which means something quite different from "Even I don't know how to answer that".

English is a pragmatic language, meaning word order is flexible. In my first sentence, the 'even' can go in both places while retaining the same meaning. Good luck with your ESL tests as well.

> In my first sentence, the 'even' can go in both places while retaining the same meaning.

I really don't think it can. Looking through examples of people using that construction [1] they are all being used to emphasize the speaker's lack of something, without any implication that if someone were to have one it would be the speaker. Do you see any examples of someone using it your way?

> Good luck with your ESL tests as well.

I don't know if it's apparent to you how condescending that sounds? But, for what it's worth, I'm a native speaker of English and have a degree in linguistics.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=%22i+don%27t+even+have%22

I can't even begin to explain how sad that is for you.

I'd interpret that as "this is incredibly sad for your", as in, it's so sad it's hard to even begin to explain it. Do you interpret it as "if anyone could explain how sad this is it would be me, and I can't"?

(It would be helpful if you could link to an example in context, where we can see that the speaker is using it your way)

I'm first language English and "Even I don't know how to answer that" doesn't sound correct to me for emphasis. It sounds like you're implying you're some kind of expert who should know, and showing surprise that "even I" don't know how to answer that.

If I wanted to emphasize, I would write "I don't even know how to answer that".

I believe it's meant to be "Even _I_ don't have..."

The reasonable interpretation is that GP is saying many people may have private pictures of their partner.

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