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Re:One of Apple’s Best Ideas Ever — Made Worse by dfc on Saturday August 04, 2012 @12:20AM (#4337538)
So your link was for the special usage note to the last entry on the page that begins with "sometimes"? Furthermore I have never seen this idiom used when it is preceded by "can."
Re:One of Apple’s Best Ideas Ever — Made Worse by NoPiece on Saturday August 04, 2012 @01:01PM (#4338958)
From the OED:

"speak for yourself: expressing a desire to dissociate oneself from what another has just said or the assumptions behind it."

Re:One of Apple’s Best Ideas Ever — Made Worse by dfc on Saturday August 04, 2012 @01:10PM (#4338979)
That looks like a suprisingly terse entry from the oed. I do not think io have eveer seen such a short entry from the oed. How much did you edit and leave out?

How many people put "can" in front of the idiom?

Re:One of Apple’s Best Ideas Ever — Made Worse by NoPiece on Monday August 06, 2012 @12:54AM (#4343790)
In the OED entry for the verb "speak," there is a sub entry for "to speak for." About half of that is devoted to "speak for yourself," which is what I quoted. It is followed by the typical list of examples.

There was a Simpsons reincarnation joke that used the phrase:

Sideshow Mel: You only live once! Apu: Hey, speak for yourself!

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Simpsons/Season_9#Miracle_o...

Re:One of Apple’s Best Ideas Ever — Made Worse by dfc on Monday August 06, 2012 @01:14AM (#4343848)
How many of the example entries are preceded by "can?"