The teacher said "In English a double negative forms a positive.
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@kibcol1049
First day of English class, prof says that there two words that he never wants to see or hear. One of them is “nice” and the other is lousy. Someone in the back asks, “what are the two words?”@stevewfolds @kibcol1049 thanks. I have appreciated and written a little based on your words
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@mfeilner @kibcol1049 @chillicampari "Toch?"
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@mfeilner @kibcol1049 @chillicampari Then there is "jo" in Norwegian which (among other uses) is a "Yes" that preceeds the other person first affirming and then disagreeing with you in some way.
"Kan jeg ta bussen herfra til Ullevaal?"
"Can I get to Ullevaal from here by bus?"
"Jo, men det er lettere å ta en taxi"
"Yes, but it is easier to take a taxi".
@the_wub @mfeilner @kibcol1049 @chillicampari Jo is such a handy word. Every time i come back from Norway i seem to keep using it in the UK for a few weeks. Maybe the nearest in English is a sort of drawn out yeeaasss while sucking air through the teeth.
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@kibcol1049
Be careful in Germany:
"yes, yes" means "kiss my ass".("Ja, ja" heißt "leck mich am Arsch".)
@ard_the_rich @kibcol1049
Depends on pronounciation . -
The teacher said "In English a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."@kibcol1049 In Finnish we have got "joo joo" which means 1) a very reclutant "yes, gonna do it even though I could not be bothered" or 2) not willing to say no but disagreeing with the statement or plead. "Joo" is just something akin to "yeah" in spoken language, borrowed from some Swedish dialect, probably.
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English is my second language and phrases like
"we don't want no education"
always bother me.
@rzeta0 @kibcol1049 The IT Crowd (TV series) had Moss answering "oh yes you do, that's a double negative" in one of the episodes.
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Nope, it started here, sorry.
@TrueNorthSpice @maggiejk I'm pretty sure that Finnish people can be blamed for that, maybe.
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@kibcol1049 In Finnish we have got "joo joo" which means 1) a very reclutant "yes, gonna do it even though I could not be bothered" or 2) not willing to say no but disagreeing with the statement or plead. "Joo" is just something akin to "yeah" in spoken language, borrowed from some Swedish dialect, probably.
@kibcol1049 We've also got "niin" with numerous meanings replacing whole sentences. The meaning depends on intonation (very subtle though) and tone etc. It's all surprisingly high-context.
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@Lily_and_frog @eleder @jack @Wolf_Baginski The text book English language rules are different to the current spoken language trends. The meaning is usually clear when spoken even though grammatically incorrect. I feel sorry for non English speakers.
@kibcol1049 clearly, interpret it in whichever way is detremental to the speaker until they learn to speak clearly
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@kibcol1049
First day of English class, prof says that there two words that he never wants to see or hear. One of them is “nice” and the other is lousy. Someone in the back asks, “what are the two words?” -
@AlexanderVI @EF @rzeta0 @kibcol1049 Depends on the definition of education. To me they criticized dumb, blind memorized ... stuff.
@lankohr @AlexanderVI @EF @rzeta0 @kibcol1049
"Repeat after me: 'an acre is the area of land whose length...' " -
@the_wub @mfeilner @kibcol1049 @chillicampari Jo is such a handy word. Every time i come back from Norway i seem to keep using it in the UK for a few weeks. Maybe the nearest in English is a sort of drawn out yeeaasss while sucking air through the teeth.
@jbenjamint @mfeilner @kibcol1049 @chillicampari Jo!
Or do you mean like "Yerssss. That's a very 'interesting' proposal you have there".
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@lankohr @AlexanderVI @EF @rzeta0 @kibcol1049
"Repeat after me: 'an acre is the area of land whose length...' "@HighlandLawyer @AlexanderVI @EF @rzeta0 @kibcol1049 It's not against education, it's against black pedagogy.
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@rzeta0 @kibcol1049 apparently the double negative thing is a convention rather than a hard rule. Double negative can make a sentence more klunky (sound awkward) and it is usually better to try and remove it busy most people simply would not care.
@EF @rzeta0 @kibcol1049 to me a double negative is usually emphatic. It's complicated because double negatives in English work differently in different bits of the UK, hence the guidance not to use them when you need clarity. There are lots of cases though like 'no he did not break wind' that are universal-ish
English is what happens when you steal good ideas randomly from everyone else but have nobody doing the architecture for it
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The teacher said "In English a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."@kibcol1049 Could be done in french
"Ouais, bien sûr !" -
@HighlandLawyer @AlexanderVI @EF @rzeta0 @kibcol1049 It's not against education, it's against black pedagogy.
@lankohr @AlexanderVI @EF @rzeta0 @kibcol1049
I believe the English term for Schwarze Pädagogik is "poisonous pedagogy", to avoid confusion with educational practices applied to African Americans.But yes, the song (and surrounding material of the film) is explicit on that point.
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@Wolf_Baginski @kibcol1049 But Spanish has a similar expression: "Sí, claro", with the same negative meaning.
What happens is here irony acts, and that's why the meaning changes; it's not a syntax thing, like the double negative stuff.@eleder i mean, i get your point about irony being how meaning shifts, but i disagree that it somehow is unique. ‘Ain’t no reason’ are a double negative syntactically but remain negative. Syntax stops mattering strictly in most of these.
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@the_wub @kibcol1049 @chillicampari "Doch" is the one-word solution for Germans for insisting on being right. "Doch" is what children say, thumping their feet on the ground, crying. "Doch" means "Still" or "Yes I f***g do" or "No, I will never do that" depending on context before. It can also mean "Yes, really!!" after somebody voiced doubt. Famous is Louis de Funes "Nein! Doch! Oooooh! in German Internet culture...
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@the_wub @kibcol1049 @chillicampari "Doch" is the one-word solution for Germans for insisting on being right. "Doch" is what children say, thumping their feet on the ground, crying. "Doch" means "Still" or "Yes I f***g do" or "No, I will never do that" depending on context before. It can also mean "Yes, really!!" after somebody voiced doubt. Famous is Louis de Funes "Nein! Doch! Oooooh! in German Internet culture...
@mfeilner @kibcol1049 @chillicampari My Dutch is significantly better than my German but I understand that "toch" and "doch" are used in similar ways in their respective languages.
"Het regent buiten maar wij gaan toch de stadt in".
"Toch?".
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The teacher said "In English a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."Actually happened.
The lecturer was the Oxford linguist JL Austin, giving a talk at Columbia. The smartass in the back of the room was, as always, philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser.
