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'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".
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.
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)
