Forum: english.stackexchange.com
Tags: <grammar><phrases><book-title>
Title: Please explain "I Am America (And So Can You!)"
Question: As a non-native speaker, I found Stephen Colbert’s book title I Am America (And So Can You!) a little hard to dissect. Why so can you? Why isn’t it So Are You ? What’s the full phrase that And So Can You implies?

Answers:
sents: text: It's a play on titles from self help programs which utilize ellipsis.
text: For example I lost 20 pounds in 4 days, and so can you.
text: This is a kind of strange ellipsis, because just tacking on "[lose 20 pounds in 4 days]" doesn't really create a grammatical sentence, but it's something like that.
text: The ellipsis would be clearer if the sentences were I lost 20 pounds in 4 days, and you can [lose 20 pounds in 4 days] too.
text: I am America, and you can [be America] too.
text: And the ellipsis is not so great with "to be", either.
text: Here's some discussion from Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004522.html
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/257/JoFrhwld
score: 18
sents: text: It follows the form
text: I <verb
text: > <rest of predicate>, and so can you!
text: For example, in I use computers, and so can you!
text: the "...
text: so can you" means "you can use computers, too."
text: The part where it becomes confusing, and funny, is that the verb is not an action verb, but "am."
text: So "...
text: so can you" means "You can be America too" in this case.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/166/eds
score: 12
sents: text: It's a satirical joke.
text: The title is deliberately confusing, that's the whole point.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/300/RegDwigнt
score: 11
sents: text: I always took "I Am America" to be hubris inflated for comic effect, and
text: the "(And So Can You!)
text: " part to be a backhanded slash at Americans who can't even speak their own language good.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/161/Goodbye Stack Exchange
score: 3
sents: text: It's a joke on mistakes made with the English language by foreign countries.
text: If you look at the book there are many more jokes about the book being printed in some Asian country and it seems to make fun of engrish type mistakes.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/687/jjclarkson
score: 2

Summary of the answers:
The title "I Am America (And So Can You!)" appears to be a play on titles from self-help programmes and functions as a satirical joke. The title is deliberately confusing and is a reference to mistakes made with the English language by foreign countries.
It's a joke based on the language used in self help program titles.
The title "I Am America (And So Can You!)" appears to be a play on titles from self-help programmes and functions as a satirical joke. The title is deliberately confusing and is a reference to mistakes made with the English language by foreign countries.
The title is deliberately confusing, that's the whole point. It's a satirical joke. It's a play on titles from self help programs which utilize ellipsis.
The title is deliberately confusing. It's a joke on mistakes made with the English language by foreign countries.  
The title is deliberately confusing as a joke about the use of English in foreign countries.