Linguistics joke
Classmate JJ Snidow told me this joke, but it was supposedly an actual exchange between Oxford Philosophy of Language Professor J.L. Austin and Columbia philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser (who was apparently the man?)
“In English,” Professor Austin 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.”
Isn’t linguistics funny?
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Jristz, 
Helena Constantine, and 3 others are discussing. 
johnwcowan 6:04 pm on September 13, 2011 Permalink |
The version I heard was simply “Yeah, yeah”, which IMHO is much more of a double positive.
Stan 7:41 am on September 14, 2011 Permalink |
It’s a good joke. Have you seen it in cartoon form?
Alex 1:28 pm on September 18, 2011 Permalink |
Isn’t this one attributed to Sidney Morgenbesser?
Helena Constantine 9:41 pm on October 2, 2011 Permalink |
Actually, I would say that even in English a double negative becomes a positive only via learned hypercorrection.
#sorryimnotsorry: good apologies gone bad (Part 1/2) « The Diacritics 5:38 am on October 3, 2011 Permalink |
[…] and ascribes to it a new, totally opposite definition. (In that sense, it reminds me of that linguistics joke John posted a few weeks […]
Jristz 12:11 am on December 5, 2013 Permalink |
In spanish double negatve is strong negative, double poitive is strong positive and sarcasm switch both
That is so helpful