2 ms·
Relevant discussion from 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9339540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9339540
by gabriel34 12y ago
Relevant discussion from 2 days ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9339540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9339540
- lt 12y agoThis discussion reminds me of a joke: A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However," he pointed out, "there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative." A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
- meepmorp 12y agoI heard a version of this joke from a syntactician, but it involved a semanticist giving a conference talk on a paper he'd written. I think it's funnier that way, but that's probably the background of academic subdisciplines sniping at each other and the fear of someone pointing out that your research is just a fraud.