4 ms·
Pleasingly ambiguous phrasing. The first two times I read it, I got that this was the smartest anyone had ever looked (no one has ever looked smarter). Apologie
by jesserosenthal 13y ago
Pleasingly ambiguous phrasing. The first two times I read it, I got that this was the smartest anyone had ever looked (no one has ever looked smarter). Apologies for going off-topic, but I hadn't come across this particular cramp in the language before.
- notaddicted 13y agoI doubt anyone would disagree that triple negatives aren't easy to parse.
- girvo 13y agoNow I'm curious how natural language parsers handle triple negatives.
- JacobAldridge 13y agoYou'll be pleased to know that they don't not do them unwell.
- Lerc 13y agoI'm not sure if I wouldn't be dissapointed to hear that they couldn't.
- troels 13y agoIt's not the triple negative that is the culprit here though. It's the inherent ambiguity in a phrase such as "never been better", which could be either a negative or positive statement. I'm sure there's a name for that construct?
- Dylan16807 13y agoI think tptacek's sentence would need a 'than' to have a valid reading as a positive statement. 'never been better' is ambiguous by itself, but by the time you put it into a sentence it may or may not be ambiguous. So my answer is mu.
- im3w1l 13y agoIf that sentence hadn't mentioned triple negatives, I don't think I would have noticed anything abnormal about it.