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What about double positives? Anecdote: An MIT linguistics professor was lecturing his class the other day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a p
by scandox 6y ago
What about double positives?
Anecdote:
An MIT linguistics professor was lecturing his class the other day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. But there isn't a single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
- cafard 6y agoSome year ago, the obit for a CCNY philosophy professor attributed the counter-example to him. This may be one of those quips that is simply untraceable.