"I couldn't disagree more" -- is that proper English
eug...@ix.netcom.com
proper English. Is that a double negative or not?
Thanks,
Eugene Kononov.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Avi Jacobson
eug...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> I am curious if a phrase "I couldn't disagree more" can be considered
a
> proper English. Is that a double negative or not?
Hi, Eugene. First of all, not "a proper English", but "proper English".
Secondly, there is nothing wrong with the sentence you cite. To begin
with, "disagree" is not a negative, it is simply an adjective which
contains a prefix making it the antonym of another adjective. Consider:
"I don't dislike you; I just don't have any time to spend with you
right now."
"I'm not ecstatic about this music, but I don't find it unpleasant."
"While Durufle may not be the most famous French musician, he is
certainly not an unknown composer."
Finally, it is a common misconception that double negatives in English
are ungrammatical. (Hey - here's another example: "Double negatives
are not ungrammatical.") Double negatives in English are only
ungrammatical, prescriptively speaking, when they are used in the
normal sense of single negatives. "I didn't say nothing", in the sense
of "I didn't say anything", is incorrect. But in the following
context, "I didn't say nothing" is correct, because the double negative
is intended:
"I asked you a question, and you just stood there."
"No, I didn't just stand there."
"Yes, you did; you stood there and said nothing."
"I didn't say nothing. I answered you, but you didn't hear me."
--
Avi Jacobson, Manager of Language Localization, Gallery Systems
A...@GallerySystems.com - (510) 652 8950, ext. 246
R Fontana
> I am curious if a phrase "I couldn't disagree more" can be considered a
> proper English.
It is proper English (not "a" proper English).
> Is that a double negative or not?
I don't think that is the sort of thing that is generally labelled as a
double negative.
Mike Oliver
> (Hey - here's another example: "Double negatives
> are not ungrammatical.")
Is this littotes? I've seen littotes defined as something
like "deliberate understatement for effect", but all the examples
I recall seeing given were of this form, "not" followed
by a negative adjective.
Would it have been littotes if Avi's point had been that double
negatives are, in fact, really stunningly grammatical,
a galactic megablast of grammaticality?
khann
>
[...]
>
> [...] "disagree" is not a negative, it is simply an adjective which [...]
I am in disaccord with this statement and must disabuse you of the
distressing notion that "disagree" is an adjective. It is an
intransitive verb.
KHann
Avi Jacobson
Last time I try to perform customer support over the phone while typing
a Usenet posting. You are absolutely right, of course!
N.Mitchum
-----
> > "Double negatives are not ungrammatical."
>
> like "deliberate understatement for effect", but all the examples
> I recall seeing given were of this form, "not" followed
> by a negative adjective.
Yes, "not ungrammatical" is a form of litotes (note spelling). A
litotes is understatement for emphasis, and it's usually achieved
by a negation of the contrary. If that's too obscure, I'll give
you some examples: not a little stupid; not a bad evening; not
untrue.
----NM
willia...@my-deja.com
Avi Jacobson <A...@GallerySystems.com> wrote:
> In article <954e0v$885$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> eug...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> > I am curious if a phrase "I couldn't disagree more" can be
> > considered a proper English. Is that a double negative or not?
> Secondly, there is nothing wrong with the sentence you cite.
The other, more current, issue is whether Eugene can build on the model
"I could care less", and say "I could disagree more" with exactly the
same meaning as "I couldn't disagree more."
Gary
willia...@my-deja.com
> I am curious if a phrase "I couldn't disagree more" can be considered
> a proper English. Is that a double negative or not?
It is proper English; and the key point in Avi's response is that it is
not the double negative that is illegal in standard English--it is the
double negative intended to convey a single negative's meaning.
The sentence simply means "I disagree as much as it is possible to
disagree (which is why I cannot disagree more than I disagree now)."
Gary Williams
Paul Pfalzner
<willia...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:954rar$lgv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <954e0v$885$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> eug...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>
> > I am curious if a phrase "I couldn't disagree more" can be considered
> > a proper English. Is that a double negative or not?
>
> It is proper English; and the key point in Avi's response is that it is
> not the double negative that is illegal in standard English--it is the
> double negative intended to convey a single negative's meaning.
>
So a double negative is actually illegal? Astounding.
Arrest me!
Paul
--
Nobody can deny that everything is not never partly not true. - Tlaltimuu
(adapted)
Rainer Thonnes
willia...@my-deja.com writes:
>In article <954e0v$885$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> eug...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>
>> I am curious if a phrase "I couldn't disagree more" can be considered
>> a proper English. Is that a double negative or not?
>
>It is proper English; and the key point in Avi's response is that it is
>not the double negative that is illegal in standard English--it is the
>double negative intended to convey a single negative's meaning.
Your response is ambiguously worded. The two "it"s after the semicolon
look as though they could be pronouns of which the antecedent is the
DN in Eugene's example, but in fact the first "it" has no antecedent,
and "it is not" just means "it is not the case that", while the second
"it" clause is a somewhat odd construction, again with the "it" being
without antecedent, and the whole clause effectively the subject of
a sub-sentence in which the repetition of "that is illegal in sE" has
been omitted from the end.
What you are trying to say, of course, is that Avi's point is that
the DN is not illegal per se, but only when used to convey a single
negative meaning.
Others have opined that the example isn't a DN at all, because
"disagree" isn't a real negative. Be that as it may, for the
purpose of comprehension it is helpful to think of "disagree"
to be the opposite of "agree", and hence the negative of it.
Logically a double negative is a positive, and here we *do* have
a logical double negative. A sentence's meaning is not changed
substantially if we invert an even number of its multiplicative
components.
Thus "I can't disagree more" means "I can agree more", but that is
less helpful than changing it to "I can't agree less". This makes
it somewhat clearer that, as you say,
>The sentence simply means "I disagree as much as it is possible to
>disagree (which is why I cannot disagree more than I disagree now)."
because my agreement is already at the minimum possible level, or
my disagreement at the maximum possible level.
Anent your suggestion of a comparison with "I could care less", that
well-known aberration about which most people seem to have forgotten
that, for it to make logical sense, it has to be read as if prefixed
by something like "as if", the equivalent here would be to say "I
could agree more" with a meaning of "I agree totally", which, of
course, is the exact opposite of the original meaning, unless thought
of as coming after "as if".
I do like these long sentences...
Kimberly Delafuente
----------
In article <954e0v$885$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, eug...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> I am curious if a phrase "I couldn't disagree more" can be considered a
> proper English. Is that a double negative or not?
No, it's not a double negative. It just describes the degree to which you
disagree. In context, you disagree so much with the issue that you're
reached your limit of disagreement. Hence, you can't disagree more.
Same thing with "I couldn't care less." It means you don't care anything at
all, kinda like "I don't give a crap."
People tend to say (wrongly): "I could care less what that idiot thinks."
Perhaps THIS is a better example of a double negative. If you have the
capcity to care less, it means that at that moment, you DO care. And, that
defeats the intended meaning of the sentence....
Kimberly
eug...@ix.netcom.com
thought that the only people who take interest in English usage are
those for whom English is a second language. Now that I have read and
digested the responses, I have my own theory as to why "I couldn't
disagree more" is proper English. I think the verb "disagree" is indeed
the negative, but the other negative ("couldn't") actually applies to
the other word (which is "more"). That's why there is no double
negative in the whole sentence. Here is the proof:
Consider the phrase "I couldn't disagree". It looks to me that this one
is ungrammatical. And, curiously enough, it has almost the opposite
meaning as the phrase "I couldn't disagree more". That tells me
that "couldn't" is linked directly with "more". From here, we can
reconstruct the sentence "I couldn't disagree more" to "I disagree up
to the maximum extend of it", which has no DN and has the same meaning.
Is that rigorious enough proof?
Thanks again,
Eugene (whose first language is Russian).
>
> What you are trying to say, of course, is that Avi's point is that
> the DN is not illegal per se, but only when used to convey a single
> negative meaning.
>
> Others have opined that the example isn't a DN at all, because
> "disagree" isn't a real negative. Be that as it may, for the
> purpose of comprehension it is helpful to think of "disagree"
> to be the opposite of "agree", and hence the negative of it.
>
> Logically a double negative is a positive, and here we *do* have
> a logical double negative. A sentence's meaning is not changed
> substantially if we invert an even number of its multiplicative
> components.
>
Robert Lieblich
[ . . . ]
> People tend to say (wrongly): "I could care less what that idiot thinks."
Uh, Kinberly, you're new here, right? Better check the FAQ on this
one -- usage disputes: could care less.
> Perhaps THIS is a better example of a double negative.
Nope.
> If you have the
> capcity to care less, it means that at that moment, you DO care. And, that
> defeats the intended meaning of the sentence....
Once again, check the FAQ.
Things mean what they mean. Americans (and AUEers who have learned
American usage in this instance) know what "could care less" means.
Kimberly Delafuente
----------
In article <3A774F26...@erols.com>, Robert Lieblich
<lieb...@erols.com> wrote:
Thanks for the reference to the FAQ. That's fine with me (although I think
it's too bad). I didn't realize it was accepted usage; I was taught that it
was plain wrong. Luckily, there are still plenty of Americans who do say "I
couldn't [dis]agree more," and you will have to cut out my tongue before I
start saying it the other way.
Kimberly
Alec "Skitt" P.
"Kimberly Delafuente" <kdela...@racer.com.nospam> wrote in message
news:3a776308$0$14...@wodc7nh1.news.uu.net...
Now, that wouldn't work, would it?
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://i.am/skitt/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel of "Fawlty Towers" (he's from Barcelona).
Truly Donovan
<kdela...@racer.com> wrote:
>People tend to say (wrongly): "I could care less what that idiot thinks."
>Perhaps THIS is a better example of a double negative. If you have the
>capcity to care less, it means that at that moment, you DO care. And, that
>defeats the intended meaning of the sentence....
Have you ever known of anyone who was actually undergone this logical
exercise in real time and reached the wrong conclusion about the
speaker's intention, or are you simply repeating pedantico folklorico?
--
Truly Donovan
http://www.trulydonovan.com
Truly Donovan
<kdela...@racer.com.nospam> wrote:
>Luckily, there are still plenty of Americans who do say "I
>couldn't [dis]agree more," and you will have to cut out my tongue before I
>start saying it the other way.
No one has suggested that you should say it any way other than the way
you like. It was you who suggested that others should conform to your
standard.
Avi Jacobson
I don't think that's quite the question. In most cases, if I were to
say something that clearly meant precisely the opposite of what the
context called for, you would make no mistake as to my intention, but
you would probably think I had made a mistake. For example, if you
were my secretary and I phoned you from the road and said, "Hi, this is
Avi. Just checking in to see if anyone has been trying to reach me.
Are there any messages from [sic] me?", you would not for a moment
think I was asking whether I had left myself any messages, but you
_would_ think something had gone wrong in the utterance-forming
process. Here are some more examples:
"Truly, you should be careful not to leave your lights on when you
park. If you don't check to make sure they're on, you'll wear out the
battery."
"Avi, do you mind if I use your phone?" "Of course!"
In all of these, it's a pretty fair bet that the listener will get the
meaning right the first time. She/he may or may not pick up on the
mistake. This was precisely my reaction when I started hearing people
say "I could care less" for "I couldn't care less". I knew just what
they meant, but thought something was wrong.
--
Avi Jacobson, Manager of Language Localization, Gallery Systems
A...@GallerySystems.com - (510) 652 8950, ext. 246
Paul Pfalzner
<eug...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:954e0v$885$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> I am curious if a phrase "I couldn't disagree more" can be considered a
> proper English. Is that a double negative or not?
It is correct in English.
When trying to understand a language, simple mathematical rules do not
usually work.
If one says: "I don't dislike you", that is not the same as saying: "I like
you". It could be that I am indifferent about you, (I have no reason to
actively dislike you, but neither any reason to say that I like you), - or
that I really hate you.
So two negatives don't always - in fact, rarely - make a positive in
linguistics.
Paul
Does everyone have their withers wrung in aue?
willia...@my-deja.com
eug...@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> Consider the phrase "I couldn't disagree". It looks to me that this
> one is ungrammatical. And, curiously enough, it has almost the
> opposite meaning as the phrase "I couldn't disagree more". That tells
> me that "couldn't" is linked directly with "more".
Well, I wouldn't say it is ungrammatical (it would mean "it
was impossible for me to disagree); but you are right that the meaning
is opposite. And the rest of your analysis makes me think you've got it
figured out.
Now someone has to explain to me why "I couldn't disagree" is past
tense, but "I couldn't disagree more" is present. Something to do with
modal auxiliaries, but I'd be hard pressed to say what.
Gary Williams
Bob Cunningham
[...]
>Now someone has to explain to me why "I couldn't disagree" is past
>tense, but "I couldn't disagree more" is present. Something to do with
>modal auxiliaries, but I'd be hard pressed to say what.
In "I couldn't disagree more" it seems to me there's an "if" clause
implied, something like "I couldn't disagree more if I tried," so the
"I couldn't disagree more" is subjunctive in sense.
--
Bob Cunningham, Southern California, USofA
"Ever'body says words different. Arkansas folks says 'em different,
and Oklahomy folks says 'em different. And we seen a lady from
Massachusetts, an' she said 'em differentest of all. Couldn't hardly
make out what she was sayin'."
-- Young Ivy in John Steinbeck's _The Grapes of Wrath_
Jerry Friedman
I
> thought that the only people who take interest in English usage are
> those for whom English is a second language.
Close. Most native English speakers don't take much of an interest, but
this is a good place to find some who do.
> Now that I have read and
> digested the responses, I have my own theory as to why "I couldn't
> disagree more" is proper English. I think the verb "disagree" is
indeed
> the negative, but the other negative ("couldn't") actually applies to
> the other word (which is "more"). That's why there is no double
> negative in the whole sentence. Here is the proof:
>
> Consider the phrase "I couldn't disagree". It looks to me that this
one
> is ungrammatical.
As Gary Williams says, it's quite grammatical.
And as several people have said, double negatives can be unobjectionable
in English. What is frowned on is the use of double negatives to mean
the same thing as single negatives. For instance, "I didn't talk to
nobody" where I would say, "I didn't talk to anybody."
These constructions exist only when the two negatives are members of a
certain class of words that are real negatives, not antonyms formed with
"dis-", "un-", "-less", etc. That is, some people say, "You don't never
see none of those no more, hardly," but even they wouldn't use "I
couldn't disagree" to mean "I couldn't agree."
Surely someone has figured out the rules for these non-standard double
negatives. I'm tempted to say one of the negatives has to be "not"
modifying a verb (and probably contracted with a linking verb), and the
other has to be "no", "nothing", "never", "no one", "nobody",
"neither", or "hardly" (or barely?). In every case but "hardly", there
has to be a standard sentence with "any", "anything", "ever", "anyone",
"anybody", or "either".
Does anyone still say "nohow"? The corresponding standard sentence
would have "in any way".
> And, curiously enough, it has almost the opposite
> meaning as the phrase "I couldn't disagree more". That tells me
> that "couldn't" is linked directly with "more".
Until the linguists tell us the deep structure, I'd say that "couldn't"
is linked (or whatever the word should be) with the whole phrase
"disagree more".
> From here, we can
> reconstruct the sentence "I couldn't disagree more" to "I disagree up
> to the maximum extend of it", which has no DN and has the same
meaning.
You're quite right that "I couldn't disagree more" means "I disagree to
the maximum extent." I'm not sure about your proof, though.
By the way, the opposite sentence, "I couldn't agree more", is a cliche,
perhaps a little bit old-fashioned now.
--
Jerry Friedman
jfri...@nnm.cc.nm.nos
Translate nos to us / Traduzca nos en us
and all the disclaimers
R J Valentine
[BC] On Thu, 01 Feb 2001 16:21:43 GMT, willia...@my-deja.com said:
[BC]
[BC] [...]
[BC]
>>Now someone has to explain to me why "I couldn't disagree" is past
>>tense, but "I couldn't disagree more" is present. Something to do with
>>modal auxiliaries, but I'd be hard pressed to say what.
[BC]
[BC] In "I couldn't disagree more" it seems to me there's an "if" clause
[BC] implied, something like "I couldn't disagree more if I tried," so the
[BC] "I couldn't disagree more" is subjunctive in sense.
The phantom subjunctive would be in the implied if clause (if anywhere),
leaving the "I couldn't disagree more" as merely conditional in sense, as
indicated by the modalification of the past tense of "can", or something.
"I couldn't disagree" could be present or past, but "I couldn't have
disagreed" is less ambiguously past.
--
R. J. Valentine <mailto:r...@smart.net?subject=%3Cnews:alt.usage.english%3E%20>
John Cartmell
Jerry Friedman <jfried...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> And as several people have said, double negatives can be unobjectionable
> in English. What is frowned on is the use of double negatives to mean
> the same thing as single negatives. For instance, "I didn't talk to
> nobody" where I would say, "I didn't talk to anybody."
These double negatives are perfectly acceptable. In some dialects they
correctly indicate an emphasised negative.
Some 'authorities' have decreed that such negatives should work as a piece
of logic {a negative and a negative makes a positive}. This is only the
case in clever-clever schoolboy language where the intention is to trip up
their elders.
The only place in real life where double negatives make a positive is where
the phrase after the {not} is in quoted form. eg:
I didn't "talk to nobody"
as in:
"He'd already left the room. You were talking to nobody."
"I didn't 'talk to nobody'; I was using my mobile phone."
<dons flame suit> ;-)
--
John Cartmell - Manchester, UK
The next meeting of MAUG on Wednesday 21st February...
..will be... [strictly embargoed]
Jerry Friedman
> Surely someone has figured out the rules for these non-standard double
> negatives. I'm tempted to say one of the negatives has to be "not"
> modifying a verb (and probably contracted with a linking verb), and
the
> other has to be "no", "nothing", "never", "no one", "nobody",
> "neither", or "hardly" (or barely?). In every case but "hardly",
there
> has to be a standard sentence with "any", "anything", "ever",
"anyone",
> "anybody", or "either".
Sorry, I forgot "nowhere" and "noplace". The latter is colloquial. :-)
And there can be any number of the negatives that are not "not".
Mark Wallace
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.terrashare.com/mainmenu.htm
____________________________________________
Paul Pfalzner <ai...@freenet.carleton.ca> schreef in berichtnieuws
959o44$hev$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
'Disagree' isn't a full-blooded negative; it's simply the antonym of
'agree'; so there is no double negative in the sentence.
--
Mark Wallace
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.terrashare.com/mainmenu.htm
Rainer Thonnes
willia...@my-deja.com writes:
>
>Now someone has to explain to me why "I couldn't disagree" is past
>tense, but "I couldn't disagree more" is present. Something to do with
>modal auxiliaries, but I'd be hard pressed to say what.
That isn't necessarily the case. Both could be simple past or
present subjunctive, depending on context.
Rainer Thonnes
"Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> writes:
>
>'Disagree' isn't a full-blooded negative; it's simply the antonym of
>'agree'; so there is no double negative in the sentence.
But an antonym is a pretty convincing negative of whatever it's the
antonym of. Whether that thins the blood depends rather on which
of the two you think of as positive.
In the present case, the simpler, and intuitively positive, word is
"agree". So the sentence reads: "I could not not agree more".
That's a pretty convincing double negative in my book.
In general, you won't substantively change the meaning (though you
might shift the emphasis) of any statement if you negate two of
its conjunctive components. So, being simplistic about it, "I
couldn't disagree more" should mean "I could agree more", and so,
indeed, it does, barring that this blurs the intended meaning that
one's level of agreement is at its minimum possible.
Here we would have been better off negating "dis" and "more" instead
of "not" and "dis", thus giving us "I couldn't agree less". This,
like "I couldn't care less", indicates that the extent of one's
agreeing, or caring, is, like, zero, man. It's still a double
negative, of course, but perhaps a little easier to understand
than the original.
Alternatively we could have negated "not" and "more", giving "I could
disagree less". That's still a double negative too, but not very
lucid, especially given the unfortunate proliferation of the illogical
"I could care less".
Alan Jones
"Rainer Thonnes" <r...@dcs.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:95eil5$pgd$4...@kane.dcs.ed.ac.uk...
> In article <95dpg6$gp72k$1...@ID-51325.news.dfncis.de>,
> "Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> writes:
> >
> >'Disagree' isn't a full-blooded negative; it's simply the antonym of
> >'agree'; so there is no double negative in the sentence.
>
> But an antonym is a pretty convincing negative of whatever it's the
> In the present case, the simpler, and intuitively positive, word is
> "agree". So the sentence reads: "I could not not agree more".
> That's a pretty convincing double negative in my book.
>
> In general, you won't substantively change the meaning (though you
> might shift the emphasis) of any statement if you negate two of
> its conjunctive components. So, being simplistic about it, "I
> couldn't disagree more" should mean "I could agree more", and so,
> indeed, it does, barring that this blurs the intended meaning that
> one's level of agreement is at its minimum possible.
>
> Here we would have been better off negating "dis" and "more" instead
> of "not" and "dis", thus giving us "I couldn't agree less". This,
> like "I couldn't care less", indicates that the extent of one's
Suppose we say "I couldn't differ more from your view of the matter". "Differ
from" is an antonym of "concur with", but is it a negative? I don't think so:
I'd limit negatives to no, not, never, nowhere, and any similar n- words I've
forgotten. But NSOED says "Double negative: Grammar - a construction
containing two negative elements (esp. where one is redundant, now considered
ungrammatical in standard English)". A negative _element_ perhaps, then,
would include "disagree".
Whatever the grammar, "I couldn't disagree more" is a common and fully
acceptable expression in BrE, and clearly means "I disagree very strongly".
"I couldn't agree more" is even commoner, to the point of being a cliché.
Alan Jones
Paul Pfalzner
"Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> wrote in message
news:95dpg6$gp72k$1...@ID-51325.news.dfncis.de...
> For the intelligent approach to nasty humour, visit
> The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
> http://humorpages.terrashare.com/mainmenu.htm
> ____________________________________________
>
>
> Paul Pfalzner <ai...@freenet.carleton.ca> schreef in berichtnieuws
> 959o44$hev$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
> >
> > usually work.
> >
> > If one says: "I don't dislike you", that is not the same as saying: "I
> like
> > you". It could be that I am indifferent about you, (I have no reason to
> > actively dislike you, but neither any reason to say that I like you), -
or
> > that I really hate you.
> >
> > So two negatives don't always - in fact, rarely - make a positive in
> > linguistics.
>
> 'Disagree' isn't a full-blooded negative; it's simply the antonym of
> 'agree'; so there is no double negative in the sentence.
>
I disagree: the word "disagree" is equivalent to "I do not agree".
Paul
Evan Kirshenbaum
> "Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> wrote in message
> news:95dpg6$gp72k$1...@ID-51325.news.dfncis.de...
>
> > 'Disagree' isn't a full-blooded negative; it's simply the antonym
> > of 'agree'; so there is no double negative in the sentence.
>
> I disagree: the word "disagree" is equivalent to "I do not agree".
Most surveys that ask you to characterize a statement allow the answer
"neither agree nor disagree". If one has no basis for an opinion (or
simply doesn't hold one), it is perfectly reasonable to be unwilling
to agree without actively disagreeing. (Do you agree that I have four
siblings? Do you disagree? Why?)
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Well, if you can't believe what you
1501 Page Mill Road, Building 1U |read in a comic book, what can you
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |believe?!
| Bullwinkle J. Moose
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Robert Lieblich
>
> "Mark Wallace" wrote:
> > 'Disagree' isn't a full-blooded negative; it's simply the antonym of
> > 'agree'; so there is no double negative in the sentence.
> >
> I disagree: the word "disagree" is equivalent to "I do not agree".
Well, okay, although I'd say "The sentence 'I disagree' is
equivalent to the sentence 'I do not agree.'" That's not my point.
My point is that "demur" means essentially the same as "disagree,"
although its syntax varies somewhat. Is "I demur from your
statement" a double negative?
How about "Yeah, right," which is generally accepted, even in print,
as meaning "I do not agree"? Is "Yeah, right" a double negative?
And how many postings ago did someone last mention on this thread my
all-time favorite word, "litotes"?
mpl...@my-deja.com
There is one problem with your explanation. The double negative which
is now banned from standard English _also_ is "intended to convey a
single negative's meaning."
"We don't have no time for that" is a nonstandard phrase which conveys
exactly the same meaning as the standard English phrase "We don't have
any time for that." And it conveys that meaning successfully even to a
speaker of standard English.
I think when discussing the current standard for the English negative,
one should specify that "arithmetic logic" is in play, as it was for
example in Classical Latin (from which was borrowed the current rule,
by the way). However, in the case of the double negative of
nonstandard English dialects or of standard French, arithmetic logic
does not govern usage.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
Alec "Skitt" P.
"Robert Lieblich" <lieb...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:3A7B3F8D...@erols.com...
>
> How about "Yeah, right," which is generally accepted, even in print,
> as meaning "I do not agree"? Is "Yeah, right" a double negative?
Aha! A double positive resulting in a negative! Quaint, ain't it?
Mike Oliver
> I think when discussing the current standard for the English negative,
> one should specify that "arithmetic logic" is in play, as it was for
> example in Classical Latin (from which was borrowed the current rule,
> by the way). However, in the case of the double negative of
> nonstandard English dialects or of standard French, arithmetic logic
> does not govern usage.
Some people have a notion that the "positive" interpretation
of double-negatives derives somehow from the rule that
the product of two negative numbers is positive.
I have never seen any historical reference associated with
this claim, and I do not believe it. I think the interpretation
derives rather from a desire to preserve semantic meaning
under natural syntactic transformations.
So for example, the sentence "I don't X" should have
the same meaning as the logical negation of "I do X";
(roughly paraphrased, "It is false that I do X".
To the greatest extent possible, this rule should be independent
of the form or meaning of the predicate X.
Now, "I have nothing to say" is true if and only if
the statement "I have something to say" is false.
So "I don't have nothing to say" should be true
if and only if it is false that "I have something
to say" is false; that is, if I in fact have
something to say.
This has nothing directly to do with arithmetic; it
is simply classical logic (including the law of the
excluded middle or "tertium non datur").
So I think your term "arithmetic logic" is out
of place. You might call it "transformational logic"
if that suited your fancy.
Paul Pfalzner
"Evan Kirshenbaum" <ev...@garrett.hpl.hp.com> wrote in message
news:v9hofwk...@garrett.hpl.hp.com...
> ai...@freenet.carleton.ca (Paul Pfalzner) writes:
>
> > "Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> wrote in message
> > news:95dpg6$gp72k$1...@ID-51325.news.dfncis.de...
> >
> > > 'Disagree' isn't a full-blooded negative; it's simply the antonym
> > > of 'agree'; so there is no double negative in the sentence.
> >
> > I disagree: the word "disagree" is equivalent to "I do not agree".
>
> Most surveys that ask you to characterize a statement allow the answer
> "neither agree nor disagree". If one has no basis for an opinion (or
> simply doesn't hold one), it is perfectly reasonable to be unwilling
> to agree without actively disagreeing. (Do you agree that I have four
> siblings? Do you disagree? Why?)
Of course there can be positions between total agreement and total
disagreement. But that is not the point at issue here in Mark Wallace's
remark.
I say that "disagree" does contain a negative. He - the humorist - says it
does not. Funny.
Paul
Mark Wallace
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.terrashare.com/mainmenu.htm
____________________________________________
Rainer Thonnes <r...@dcs.ed.ac.uk> schreef in berichtnieuws
95eil5$pgd$4...@kane.dcs.ed.ac.uk...
> In article <95dpg6$gp72k$1...@ID-51325.news.dfncis.de>,
> "Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> writes:
> >
> >'Disagree' isn't a full-blooded negative; it's simply the antonym of
> >'agree'; so there is no double negative in the sentence.
>
> But an antonym is a pretty convincing negative of whatever it's the
> antonym of. Whether that thins the blood depends rather on which
> of the two you think of as positive.
Now you're being ridiculous.
'Agree' is the antonym of 'disagree', so the phrase 'I couldn't agree more'
is also a double negative, by those standards.
'Antonym' is not a synonym of 'negative'; it merely indicates that one word
means something different to another word. Positive and negative don't come
into it.
Black & white.
Rich & poor.
Old & young.
Big & small.
Where's the negative?
Mark Wallace
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.terrashare.com/mainmenu.htm
____________________________________________
Paul Pfalzner <ai...@freenet.carleton.ca> schreef in berichtnieuws
95fpuf$o91$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
Does 'big' contain a negative, because it is equivalent to 'not small'?
Does 'small' contain a negative, because it is equivalent to 'not big'?
You're talking about cheese as if it were chalk. On a completely different
track.
Antonyms are not negative, they are merely 'opposites'.
--
Mark Wallace
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>'Disagree' isn't a full-blooded negative; it's simply the antonym of
>'agree'; so there is no double negative in the sentence.
I couldn't agree more.
Or, I couldn't disagree less.
Or, I couldn't not disagree more.
The last is a doulbe negative.
Steve Hayes
http://www.suite101.com/myhome.cfm/methodius
mpl...@my-deja.com
According to linguist Naomi S. Baron (in _Alphabet to Email: How
Written English Evolved and Where It's Heading,_ by linguist Naomi S.
Baron [Routledge, New York, copyright 2000]) the first grammars in
English were written with the unquestioned assumption that Latin
grammar was _the grammar._ It took some time for the realization that
perhaps English grammar was inferior to Latin grammar, and could
benefit from a reform based upon Latin grammar. The rule concerning the
double negative is based upon the following Latin rule:
From the Allen and Greenough Latin Grammar toc at
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/text?
lookup=ag+gram.+325&vers=english
[quote]
326. Two negatives are equivalent to an affirmative:--
nemô nôn audiet, every one will hear (nobody will not hear).
nôn possum nôn cônfiteri; (Cic. Fam. 9.14.1), I must confess.
ut ... ne nôn timere quidem sine aliquô timôre possimus (Cic. Mil. 2),
so that we cannot even be relieved of fear without some fear.
[end quote]
The proposal to reform English grammar based upon this rule originated
with Robert Lowth, who in his _A Short Introduction to English
Grammar,_ (1762) wrote: "Two negatives in English destroy one another,
or are equivalent to an affirmative" (see
http://nutsandbolts.washcoll.edu/topten.html).
No doubt Lowth thought that his rule derived from classical logic. I
doubt that he made a distinction between classical logic and grammar--
to the people of that time Latin grammar was very simply an exquisite
example of logic, and classical logic was the only logic they knew of.
It follows that Lowth would have thought classical logic, the logic of
the Latin language, and arithmetic logic were one and the same.
I used _arithmetic logic_ simply as shorthand for the rule governing
negative statements in modern standard English. It certainly seems to
map well onto the current English rule. And it certainly does _not_ map
well onto the rules of certain nonstandard English dialects and the
French language. But it is just a tool, a convenience. The problem with
using the term _transformational logic,_ as you have proposed, is that
it would take much longer to get the idea across (and likely it would
not stick in memory as well) as the term _arithmetical logic._ It might
work well for a linguist, but I see it as rather a disadvantage for the
average person.
Mike Oliver
> I used _arithmetic logic_ simply as shorthand for the rule governing
> negative statements in modern standard English. It certainly seems to
> map well onto the current English rule. And it certainly does _not_ map
> well onto the rules of certain nonstandard English dialects and the
> French language. But it is just a tool, a convenience. The problem with
> using the term _transformational logic,_ as you have proposed, is that
> it would take much longer to get the idea across (and likely it would
> not stick in memory as well) as the term _arithmetical logic._ It might
> work well for a linguist, but I see it as rather a disadvantage for the
> average person.
My main objection is that it might cause people to think that
the rule comes *from* arithmetic, which is certainly not true.
Why, the ancient Romans didn't even *know* about negative numbers.
Digressing slightly here, I am not sure it is really accurate
to speak uncritically of French as using double negation with
the same meaning as single negation. Recall that the problem
with
He doesn't say nothing
is that, according to the simplest rule for "don't", it would
be the logical negation of
He says nothing
which is a perfectly grammatical English sentence.
This is not the case in French. There is no rule to
transform
Il ne dit rien
into the logical negation of
*Il dit rien
which is not even a standard French utterance, if I
recall correctly. Moreover "ne" is not a negation
operator at all; you cannot say, e.g.,
*Il ne dit
So perhaps it makes more sense to say that the negation
operation in French is neither "ne" nor "pas" but the
temporally separated "ne...pas", with other negative
sentence modifiers of one sort or another being
"ne...rien", "ne...personne", "ne...quoi", "ne...que",
and probably others I don't know about. "Ne" itself
is not a negation operator at all, but just a sort
of marker for them. Or that's how it seems to me
with my high-school French.
Don Aitken
wrote:
>mpl...@my-deja.com wrote:
>
>> I think when discussing the current standard for the English negative,
>> one should specify that "arithmetic logic" is in play, as it was for
>> example in Classical Latin (from which was borrowed the current rule,
>> by the way). However, in the case of the double negative of
>> nonstandard English dialects or of standard French, arithmetic logic
>> does not govern usage.
>
>Some people have a notion that the "positive" interpretation
>of double-negatives derives somehow from the rule that
>the product of two negative numbers is positive.
>
>I have never seen any historical reference associated with
>this claim, and I do not believe it. I think the interpretation
>derives rather from a desire to preserve semantic meaning
>under natural syntactic transformations.
>
[snip explanation]
>
>This has nothing directly to do with arithmetic;
yes it has
>it is simply classical logic (including the law of the
>excluded middle or "tertium non datur").
>So I think your term "arithmetic logic" is out
>of place. You might call it "transformational logic"
>if that suited your fancy.
But this "logical" rule is exactly identical in all respects to the
arithmetical rule which you dispute. It is doubtless true that the
prescriptive grammarians thought in terms of logic rather than
arithmetic, but these are (as proved by Russell and Whitehead a
century ago) merely two differnt ways of saying the same thing.
--
Don Aitken
mpl...@my-deja.com
Are you aware that in informal French usage today there is a tendency
toward the single negative? For example, it is quite common for a
Frenchman to say "Je sais pas" (sometimes spelled and pronounced "Chais
pas") instead of "Je ne sais pas"? One similarly hears "Je sais rien"
for "Je ne sais rien."
It is respectable enough that I heard a panelist use it on a French
television talk show last December. (He seemed to be saying the "Je
sais pas" variant, not the "Chais pas" one.)
Of course, "Je sais pas" means exactly the same thing as "Je ne sais
pas."
As for the standard French negative construction: Linguist Otto
Jesperson wrote extensively on the negative in English and other
languages. He called the English double negative the _nexal negative._
In explaining the nexal negative, he gave a French double negative
construction as an example, so he obviously thought the English and
French double negatives to be examples of the same phenomenon.
Mike Oliver
> But this "logical" rule is exactly identical in all respects to the
> arithmetical rule which you dispute. It is doubtless true that the
> prescriptive grammarians thought in terms of logic rather than
> arithmetic, but these are (as proved by Russell and Whitehead a
> century ago) merely two differnt ways of saying the same thing.
OK, giving this any meaning that occurs to me on the face of
things, this is pretty much nonsense, as I'll explain. If you
meant something else which I wasn't able to recover from your
words, please write back and say what it was.
First, when you say that the rule is "the same in all respects",
I take it that you are equating excluded middle, which may
be written
~~p <--> p
as being the same as the arithmetic rule
--x = x
for, say, real x, or integer x, or rational x, or what have you.
They do look superficially similar, but they are in fact not
at all the same. The algebraic structure on the truth set
{T,F} generalizes most naturally to what is called a "Boolean algebra".
And the reals do not form a Boolean algebra (under any common operations);
nor do the integers or the rationals.
As to bringing in Russell to claim that logic and arithmetic are
"the same thing": The arithmetization of syntax and of deductive
reasoning was the work not of Russell, but of Gödel and Tarski, and perhaps
you could give some credit to Matiyasevic. In
no coding that I have ever heard of is the Gödel number of the negation
of a statement equal to the negative of the Gödel number of the statement
itself.
Russell is IMO overrated by the popular press as regards his contributions
to mathematical logic, not because he didn't have talent, but because he
bet on the wrong horse -- a foundational school, now mostly discredited, called
Logicism, which essentially claimed that mathematics had no content but
consisted of pure deductive logic. It was, at the time, worth a try.
Mike Oliver
> Are you aware that in informal French usage today there is a tendency
> toward the single negative? For example, it is quite common for a
> Frenchman to say "Je sais pas" (sometimes spelled and pronounced "Chais
> pas") instead of "Je ne sais pas"? One similarly hears "Je sais rien"
> for "Je ne sais rien."
I have heard of this, yes; it's my understanding that it's used primarily
in speech rather than in writing.
> Of course, "Je sais pas" means exactly the same thing as "Je ne sais
> pas."
Precisely, because "ne" is not a negation operator at all, but more
a warning that one is coming. If you could say *both*
"je sais pas" and "je ne sais" with the same meaning, then
we'd perhaps have a problem.
> As for the standard French negative construction: Linguist Otto
> Jesperson wrote extensively on the negative in English and other
> languages. He called the English double negative the _nexal negative._
> In explaining the nexal negative, he gave a French double negative
> construction as an example, so he obviously thought the English and
> French double negatives to be examples of the same phenomenon.
Well, I haven't read Jesperson. But in any case I'm not necessarily
arguing *against* these being the same. In a dialect in which one
would normally say "I don't know nothing", one would probably *not*
say "I know nothing". Therefore the intuition that these sentences
should oppose each other does not attach, since the second sentence
is not used. The problem arises at the interface between dialects
that use the two forms.
Mike Oliver
> As to bringing in Russell to claim that logic and arithmetic are
> "the same thing": The arithmetization of syntax and of deductive
> reasoning was the work not of Russell, but of Gödel and Tarski, and perhaps
> you could give some credit to Matiyasevic.
On further thought, Tarski probably had little to do with it; most
likely it was all Gödel. I was considering the fact that Tarski proved
that arithmetical truth is not arithmetically definable, which on the
face of it seems simpler than the Gödel Incompleteness Theorems,
so I might have expected it to have been proved first. But now
I think Tarski's result probably came later, and was probably phrased
in terms of the Gödel numbers of true statements of arithmetic. Anyone
who actually knows is invited to comment.
Also, perhaps I shouldn't have cut Russell out of it entirely--I did
have a recent conversation in which Tony Martin pointed out that
while Gödel was the first to arithmetize syntax, he wasn't the first
to *mathematize* it, and I think he might have said Russell did
that, I expect phrasing it in terms of types. But one would
be going very far afield indeed to claim that the expression of
syntax and deduction in the language of type theory meant that
logical negation is the same as taking the negative of a number.
Mike Barnes
>Are you aware that in informal French usage today there is a tendency
>toward the single negative? For example, it is quite common for a
>Frenchman to say "Je sais pas" (sometimes spelled and pronounced "Chais
>pas") instead of "Je ne sais pas"? One similarly hears "Je sais rien"
>for "Je ne sais rien."
Recently I was talking in France to a friend of French-Canadian origin
who ridiculed the Canadians for saying "chais pas", with a strong
implication that the French didn't say that. This is all way above my
level of knowledge of French, but I'd be interested to know The Truth.
I'm aware of the dropping of "ne" in French French, it's the "chais pas"
bit I'm interested in.
--
Mike Barnes
Rainer Thonnes
"Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> writes:
>Rainer Thonnes <r...@dcs.ed.ac.uk> schreef
>> "Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> writes:
>> >
>> >'Disagree' isn't a full-blooded negative; it's simply the antonym of
>> >'agree'; so there is no double negative in the sentence.
>>
>> But an antonym is a pretty convincing negative of whatever it's the
>> antonym of. Whether that thins the blood depends rather on which
>> of the two you think of as positive.
>
>Now you're being ridiculous.
I disagree.
>'Agree' is the antonym of 'disagree', so the phrase 'I couldn't agree more'
>is also a double negative, by those standards.
By nothing but those standards, indeed it would. But you quoted
selectively and hence unfairly. It seems natural to focus on "agree"
as the simpler word, one more easily identified as a positive, if it
be necessary to think in terms of positive and negative, though it
would be more useful not to make too much of the positive/negative
thing, because we are dealing with logic, not with numbers.
>'Antonym' is not a synonym of 'negative'; it merely indicates that one word
>means something different to another word.
I disagree. An antonym is more than just different, it's the opposite,
which kind of means maximally different, or, if you prefer, minimally equal.
If A is the antonym of B then it is also a negative of it, but negativity
is relative.
>Positive and negative don't come into it.
I agree, if you're thinking of arithmetic and numbers. However, it seems
more appropriate to think of the "negative" in "double negative" not as
akin to "minus", but rather to "not". We're talking about *logical*
negation, of the kind which, at the simplest level, has the fundamental
property that single repetition cancels it. The opposite of the opposite
of X is X itself.
>Black & white.
>Rich & poor.
>Old & young.
>Big & small.
>Where's the negative?
Quite. They're all opposites, and hence negatives, of each other,
in relative terms. But in absolute terms either one could be a
positive. Who's to say whether the Earth spins clockwise or
anti-clockwise? It just depends on which pole you're looking at.
And so it can be with agree/disagree, but nevertheless it seems more
natural to latch on to "agree" being the obvious positive. Having
done so, "disagree" must then be negative.
Rainer Thonnes
"Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> writes:
>
>Does 'big' contain a negative, because it is equivalent to 'not small'?
>Does 'small' contain a negative, because it is equivalent to 'not big'?
>You're talking about cheese as if it were chalk. On a completely different
>track.
>Antonyms are not negative, they are merely 'opposites'.
Antonyms are opposites and *therefore* negative.
Any dictionary ought to confirm that "less than zero" is not the
only meaning of "negative", particularly for the noun.
Padraig Breathnach
>Recently I was talking in France to a friend of French-Canadian origin
>who ridiculed the Canadians for saying "chais pas", with a strong
>implication that the French didn't say that. This is all way above my
>level of knowledge of French, but I'd be interested to know The Truth.
>
>I'm aware of the dropping of "ne" in French French, it's the "chais pas"
>bit I'm interested in.
>
We have been around this house once or twice before.
The French, to my ear, do not drop the "ne". The expression "Je ne sais pas"
tends to be spoken in an informal manner, with an amount of elision. Think
"j'n'sais pas", where the "n" is just about there, trying to hide.
PB
khann
"J'n'sais pas" is standard Canadian French. "Chais pas" strikes me as an
Acadianism.
KHann -- live here, heard them both, didn't get a tee-shirt.
mpl...@my-deja.com
How then, do you explain that a search for "Chais pas" (put quote marks
around the phrase when searching for it) turns up 1,090 hits on
Google.com?
Besides, I was taught to always drop the vowel in _ne_ when saying "Je
ne sais pas," which I always do, so I certainly know the difference
between "Je ne sais pas" and "Je sais pas" and "Chais pas." I
suspect "Chais pas" is more commonly used by young people; the man I
saw on French television was about 35, I would guess, and did not
say "Chais pas," he said "Je sais pas."
mpl...@my-deja.com
[snip]
>
> > As for the standard French negative construction: Linguist Otto
> > Jesperson wrote extensively on the negative in English and other
> > languages. He called the English double negative the _nexal
negative._
> > In explaining the nexal negative, he gave a French double negative
> > construction as an example, so he obviously thought the English and
> > French double negatives to be examples of the same phenomenon.
>
> Well, I haven't read Jesperson. But in any case I'm not necessarily
> arguing *against* these being the same. In a dialect in which one
> would normally say "I don't know nothing", one would probably *not*
> say "I know nothing". Therefore the intuition that these sentences
> should oppose each other does not attach, since the second sentence
> is not used. The problem arises at the interface between dialects
> that use the two forms.
>
I haven't tried to verify the following, but I have read that when
Shakespeare used the double negative, it was for emphasis. He did not
use it, in other words, as do those dialects today which use it for
simple negation. That being the case, he may well have said "I don't
know nothing" in one circumstance and "I know nothing" in another, but
because of the change in emphasis, the meaning would not be quite the
same.
Mike Oliver
> I haven't tried to verify the following, but I have read that when
> Shakespeare used the double negative, it was for emphasis. He did not
> use it, in other words, as do those dialects today which use it for
> simple negation. That being the case, he may well have said "I don't
> know nothing" in one circumstance and "I know nothing" in another, but
> because of the change in emphasis, the meaning would not be quite the
> same.
This would be interesting to examine. Surely in a group like this
we must have some devoted Bard buffs who could provide us with examples
to study.
Or do I have to page DSH?
Mark Wallace
There is hardly a word in the English language that does not have an
antonym. Each of these antonyms has an antonym, which is the word itself.
Where do you start from, to get this mythical 'negative'?
Basically, what you are saying is that almost every word in the English
language is negative, so putting 'not' before any of them creates a double
negative.
I've been there myself, with this kind of misguided argument, where the
complexity of it all blinds one to the obvious.
Stop looking at the trees, and you might see the wood.
****
The antonym of light is dark, so dark is negative.
Given that 'dark' is negative: 'not dark' is a double negative.
The antonym of dark is light, so light is negative.
Given that 'light' is negative: 'not light' is a double negative.
'Dark light' is no longer an oxymoron, it is now a double negative.
****
*sigh*
--
Mark Wallace
____________________________________________
Don Aitken
wrote:
>>Don Aitken wrote
>>>mpl...@my-deja.com wrote:
>>>
>>>> I think when discussing the current standard for the English negative,
>>>> one should specify that "arithmetic logic" is in play, as it was for
>>>> example in Classical Latin (from which was borrowed the current rule,
>>>> by the way). However, in the case of the double negative of
>>>> nonstandard English dialects or of standard French, arithmetic logic
>>>> does not govern usage.
>>>
>>>Some people have a notion that the "positive" interpretation
>>>of double-negatives derives somehow from the rule that
>>>the product of two negative numbers is positive.
>>
>>>I have never seen any historical reference associated with
>>>this claim, and I do not believe it. I think the interpretation
>>>derives rather from a desire to preserve semantic meaning
>>>under natural syntactic transformations.
>>>
>>[snip explanation]
>>
>>>This has nothing directly to do with arithmetic;
>>yes it has
>>>it is simply classical logic (including the law of the
>>>excluded middle or "tertium non datur").
>>>So I think your term "arithmetic logic" is out
>>>of place. You might call it "transformational logic"
>>>if that suited your fancy.
>>But this "logical" rule is exactly identical in all respects to the
>>arithmetical rule which you dispute. It is doubtless true that the
>>prescriptive grammarians thought in terms of logic rather than
>>arithmetic, but these are (as proved by Russell and Whitehead
>>a century ago) merely two differnt ways of saying the same thing.
>OK, giving this any meaning that occurs to me on the face of
>things, this is pretty much nonsense, as I'll explain. If you
>meant something else which I wasn't able to recover from your
>words, please write back and say what it was.
>First, when you say that the rule is "the same in all respects",
>I take it that you are equating excluded middle, which may
>be written
> ~~p <--> p
>as being the same as the arithmetic rule
> --x = x
>for, say, real x, or integer x, or rational x, or what have you.
>They do look superficially similar, but they are in fact not
>at all the same. The algebraic structure on the truth set
>{T,F} generalizes most naturally to what is called a "Boolean algebra".
>And the reals do not form a Boolean algebra (under any common operations);
>nor do the integers or the rationals.
>As to bringing in Russell to claim that logic and arithmetic are
>"the same thing": The arithmetization of syntax and of deductive
>reasoning was the work not of Russell, but of Gödel and Tarski, and perhaps
>you could give some credit to Matiyasevic. In
>no coding that I have ever heard of is the Gödel number of the negation
>of a statement equal to the negative of the Gödel number of the statement
>itself.
>Russell is IMO overrated by the popular press as regards his contributions
>to mathematical logic, not because he didn't have talent, but because he
>bet on the wrong horse -- a foundational school, now mostly discredited, called
>Logicism, which essentially claimed that mathematics had no content but
>consisted of pure deductive logic. It was, at the time, worth a try.
Mike Oliver also wrote:
>
>On further thought, Tarski probably had little to do with it; most
>likely it was all Gödel. I was considering the fact that Tarski proved
>that arithmetical truth is not arithmetically definable, which on the
>face of it seems simpler than the Gödel Incompleteness Theorems,
>so I might have expected it to have been proved first. But now
>I think Tarski's result probably came later, and was probably phrased
>in terms of the Gödel numbers of true statements of arithmetic. Anyone
>who actually knows is invited to comment.
>
>Also, perhaps I shouldn't have cut Russell out of it entirely--I did
>have a recent conversation in which Tony Martin pointed out that
>while Gödel was the first to arithmetize syntax, he wasn't the first
>to *mathematize* it, and I think he might have said Russell did
>that, I expect phrasing it in terms of types. But one would
>be going very far afield indeed to claim that the expression of
>syntax and deduction in the language of type theory meant that
>logical negation is the same as taking the negative of a number.
OK, here goes. I think that you have assumed that I meant something
much wider than the point I was actually considering. I was defending
the use by mpl...@my-deja.com of the term "arithmetic logic", which I
take to be an informal term for the use of Boolean arithmetic, as
familiar to any computer user, and certainly not equivalent to the
larger question of arithematization of classical logic as a whole, on
which I defer to your account.
The identity at issue is that between the formula N=-(-N), which is
one of arithmetic, and N=NOT(NOT N) which would be traditionally
considered one of logic. The relevant field of application, for the
purpose in question, is to the situation in which N can only take one
or other of two values, as required by the grammatical concept of
negation. In that situation the two formulations of the rule are
equivalent, as I said. This is of course a Boolean algebra, and
certainly does not generalise to the integers, let alone any larger
set, nor did I intend to suggest that it did.
I probably misled you by my reference to Russell and Whitehead, who
were almost certainly not the first to observe this equivalence. Would
that be Boole? In any case it long predates the work of Tarski and
Godel, who produced results of much wider range and significance which
are simply not relevant to the simple point I was making.
--
Don Aitken
Mike Oliver
> OK, here goes. I think that you have assumed that I meant something
> much wider than the point I was actually considering. I was defending
> the use by mpl...@my-deja.com of the term "arithmetic logic", which I
> take to be an informal term for the use of Boolean arithmetic, as
> familiar to any computer user, and certainly not equivalent to the
> larger question of arithematization of classical logic as a whole, on
> which I defer to your account.
"Arithmetic" in the strict sense refers to the natural numbers,
not even to the reals. I'll stipulate, though, to your use of
the term "Boolean arithmetic", whose meaning is clear enough.
The problem is that this is not the sense of the word "arithmetic"
which comes to mind. Many people have the notion that those
who object to double negation used in English with the same meaning
as single negation do so because they're applying the rule they're
taught to apply to numbers. That *would* be a silly reason,
but it isn't the reason at all.
> The identity at issue is that between the formula N=-(-N), which is
> one of arithmetic, and N=NOT(NOT N) which would be traditionally
> considered one of logic.
This brings up another point, which I had avoided for simplicity
before. I made my argument in terms of classical logic, which includes
excluded middle, for convenience.
Suppose, though, that we drop excluded middle and pass to intuitionistic
logic, which is probably closer than classical logic to the logic
of everyday speech. In intuitionistic logic it does *not* hold
in general that p <--> ~~p ; to say that something is "not false"
is, at least potentially, weaker than to say that it is "true".
Note however that, while "not false" is no longer the *same* as
"true", it's also not the same as "false", and it's certainly
not a *strengthened* version of "false". It's more a weakened
version of "true". So if an intuitionist says "I don't know
nothing", you are not entitled to infer that he knows *something* --
to make that inference, you'd have to identify something he knows
and be able to prove it. But you're *definitely* not entitled
to infer that he *doesn't* know anything -- in fact you know
that this is *not* the case.
Thus the equivalence of p and ~~p, though convenient to make
the point, is not the real issue when it comes to the semantics
of double negatives in English.
> The relevant field of application, for the
> purpose in question, is to the situation in which N can only take one
> or other of two values, as required by the grammatical concept of
> negation.
So what are the two values, if we're talking about arithmetic?
1 and -1? That's not a very interesting arithmetic structure --
it's not closed under addition, for example.
The only "identity" I see between the two rules is that you have
an operation that when applied twice gives you back what you started
with. That's hardly justification for applying all the baggage of
the word "arithmetic" to the logical rule. Why not identify
logical negation with complex conjugation, or matrix transposition,
while you're at it?
> In that situation the two formulations of the rule are
> equivalent, as I said. This is of course a Boolean algebra,
You don't have a Boolean algebra with just negation. You
need conjunction and disjunction too (though if you like
you can get by with one of the two, defining the other
by De Morgan's laws).
> In any case it long predates the work of Tarski and
> Godel, who produced results of much wider range and significance which
> are simply not relevant to the simple point I was making.
OK, the simple point *I* was making is that a lot of people
thing the objection to double negatives with a negative meaning
comes from seventh-grade pre-algebra class. And it just ain't so.
Steve Hayes
>> In any case it long predates the work of Tarski and
>> Godel, who produced results of much wider range and significance which
>> are simply not relevant to the simple point I was making.
>
>OK, the simple point *I* was making is that a lot of people
>thing the objection to double negatives with a negative meaning
>comes from seventh-grade pre-algebra class. And it just ain't so.
But couldn't it develop into that?
In the 1980s, in the brief interval in which computer programming became
accessible to more than a few specialists, a lot of kids learnt the rudiments
of computer programming in school, with the simple Boolean algebra concepts
like AND, OR and NOT.
A hundred years earlier, when education was spreading in English-speaking
countries, written English began to change the pronunciation of spoken
English, so the t in often began to be sounded, and the th in clothes came to
resemble the th in then, rather than people saying "cloze".
In the same way, as more people have become aware of some basic Boolean
algebra, they have begun to apply it to the way they speak and write.
Steve Hayes
http://www.suite101.com/myhome.cfm/methodius
Mike Oliver
Steve Hayes wrote:
>
> On Wed, 07 Feb 2001 15:30:47 -0800, Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
>> OK, the simple point *I* was making is that a lot of people
>> thing the objection to double negatives with a negative meaning
>> comes from seventh-grade pre-algebra class. And it just ain't so.
>
> But couldn't it develop into that?
>
> In the 1980s, in the brief interval in which computer programming became
> accessible to more than a few specialists, a lot of kids learnt the rudiments
> of computer programming in school, with the simple Boolean algebra concepts
> like AND, OR and NOT.
> [...] as more people have become aware of some basic Boolean
> algebra, they have begun to apply it to the way they speak and write.
I'm not sure I follow what you're saying. Is it your claim that
the incidence of the double negative used in English with a negative
meaning has decreased since schoolchildren began to study computers?
I suppose that could happen, though I know of no evidence that it
has happened. Even if it has, however, I still see no connection
between the issue and the rules of arithmetic on ordinary numbers.
Digression: Did anyone notice my typo in the material Steve was
quoting? I guess *I've* got another thing coming.
K. Edgcombe
Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
>
>"Arithmetic" in the strict sense refers to the natural numbers,
>not even to the reals. I'll stipulate, though, to your use of
>the term "Boolean arithmetic", whose meaning is clear enough.
Two questions on terminology: Whence do you derive your "strict sense"? I am a
mathematician and I have never heard the term restricted in that way (fractions
were certainly part of arithmetic when I was at school). Yours may well be
some sort of original meaning, but is it still seriously used?
The other question is non-mathematical; is this a standard use of "stipulate"
in the US? I've a feeling it has come up before and turned out to be some sort
of legal term, but to the best of my knowledge this meaning is completely
unknown in the UK.
Katy
Rainer Thonnes
"Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> writes:
>Rainer Thonnes <r...@dcs.ed.ac.uk> schreef
>> "Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> writes:
>>
>> Antonyms are opposites and *therefore* negative.
>> Any dictionary ought to confirm that "less than zero" is not the
>> only meaning of "negative", particularly for the noun.
>
>There is hardly a word in the English language that does not have an
>antonym. Each of these antonyms has an antonym, which is the word itself.
>Where do you start from, to get this mythical 'negative'?
>
>Basically, what you are saying is that almost every word in the English
>language is negative, so putting 'not' before any of them creates a double
>negative.
No, that is not what I'm saying at all. Each word is merely *potentially*
negative, but whether it actually is depends on context, or focus.
Devoid of context, "black" is just a colour. It may have an opposite,
"white". The two are opposites of each other, or we could say they're
negatives of each other. This is a relative matter, and without any
specific focus we cannot say which one of them, if either, is negative
in an absolute sense.
But in the phrase "I couldn't disagree more", which stripped of its
embellishment simply means "I disagree" or "I do not agree", it is
pretty clear that we are focused on the proposition at issue, and
that differing from it (i.e. disagreeing with it) is an inherently
negative thing for to do. It is natural, in this context, to view
agreement as positive and disagreement as negative.
Once we consider disagreement negative, then adding "not" does indeed
make a double negative. If we were then to say "I couldn't disagree
less", then we'd have a triple negative. Once there are too many
negatives to keep track of what in blazes it's all supposed to mean,
the easiest trick is to count the negatives, and if the number is
odd, as it is here, then the overall meaning is essentially negative.
Having done that, we merely have to tidy thigs up and deal with matters
of degree or extent, since in real life things aren't always black and
white!
Of course the simple rule breaks down with this example where the
idiom "I cannot <verb> <comparative>" confuses things.
"I cannot go any faster" actually means "I'm going as fast as I can",
and this, paradoxically, looks as though we have a single negative
with a positive meaning. This means that we have, if you like, a
built-in constructional negative.
That understood, we can solve our conundrum: "I couldn't disagree
less" is really a quadruple negative, and so means "I agree".
Mike Oliver
>
> In article <3A81DAA7...@math.ucla.edu>,
> Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
> >
> >"Arithmetic" in the strict sense refers to the natural numbers,
> >not even to the reals. I'll stipulate, though, to your use of
> >the term "Boolean arithmetic", whose meaning is clear enough.
>
> Two questions on terminology: Whence do you derive your "strict sense"? I am a
> mathematician and I have never heard the term restricted in that way (fractions
> were certainly part of arithmetic when I was at school). Yours may well be
> some sort of original meaning, but is it still seriously used?
Well, it's certainly the sense Gauss (I think it was) had in mind
when he said that "Mathematics is the queen of the sciences, and
arithmetic is the queen of mathematics". It's also the sense
in which a predicate is "arithmetical" if it can be defined
by a formula of first-order logic all of whose quantifiers
are restricted to range over the natural numbers. "True arithmetic"
means the collection of all true first-order sentences about
the naturals, while "Peano arithmetic" is an axiomatization
of a fragment thereof. Once you bring in the reals, the
subject becomes "analysis" (or "second-order arithmetic",
which lets you quantify over sets of naturals). This is
how descriptive set theorists see the world, anyway.
I'll give you fractions, though. First-order questions about
the rationals can be decoded as first-order questions about the
naturals. Yes, of course in that sense the Boolean structure
on {T,F} is arithmetic too, but the thing about "arithmetic"
being restricted to the naturals was just an aside; the real
point was that it's associated too strongly with *numbers*
to be used without explanation for a Boolean algebra.
> The other question is non-mathematical; is this a standard use
> of "stipulate" in the US? I've a feeling it has come up before
> and turned out to be some sort of legal term, but to the best of
> my knowledge this meaning is completely
> unknown in the UK.
"Stipulate" to me means "allow for the sake of argument". Is
there another meaning?
Padraig Breathnach
>"Stipulate" to me means "allow for the sake of argument". Is
>there another meaning?
There are several meanings, all other than yours.
PB
K. Edgcombe
Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
>"K. Edgcombe" wrote:
>
>> The other question is non-mathematical; is this a standard use
>> of "stipulate" in the US? I've a feeling it has come up before
>> and turned out to be some sort of legal term, but to the best of
>> my knowledge this meaning is completely
>> unknown in the UK.
>
>"Stipulate" to me means "allow for the sake of argument". Is
>there another meaning?
Yes. Over here (UK) it means something like "require" or "state as a
prerequisite".
He agreed to come to the boink but stipulated that Brian must bring a suitable
bottle.
In due course Brian arrived bringing not the stipulated bottle but a string os
the very best sausages.
This seems to be quite unrelated to your meaning. Would one of those people
with dozens of splendid dictionaries care to help us out? Any UK contributors
agree or disagree with my version?
Katy
Donna Richoux
> Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
> >
> >"Arithmetic" in the strict sense refers to the natural numbers,
> >not even to the reals. I'll stipulate, though, to your use of
> >the term "Boolean arithmetic", whose meaning is clear enough.
[snip]
>
> The other question is non-mathematical; is this a standard use of
> "stipulate" in the US? I've a feeling it has come up before and turned
> out to be some sort of legal term, but to the best of my knowledge this
> meaning is completely unknown in the UK.
Yes, it is a US legal term that seems to be spreading. It seems to mean
"to agree to without argument" or "to waive any demand for formal
proof." I must have learned it from legal TV shows.
I have a note that Bob Lieblich once said, "This is a very useful tactic
in complex litigation -- stipulate to a whole bunch of stuff you really
don't care about so you can focus on the strongest and most important
aspects of your case."
Since the earlier meaning of "stipulate" is "to specify", especially "to
list demands or requirements," this reminds me of the contradictory
nature of the old "moot" and the legal "moot," and almost puts
"stipulate" on the list of contronyms. I think this new use requires a
"to," though.
--
Best --- Donna Richoux
Mike Oliver
> Yes, it is a US legal term that seems to be spreading. It seems to mean
> "to agree to without argument" or "to waive any demand for formal
> proof." I must have learned it from legal TV shows.
Roughly, yes. Another way of putting it might be "I'm not going
to commit myself as to whether I *really* agree, but for the purposes
of this discussion, you can assume I agree".
> I think this new use requires a "to," though.
Not necessarily. I can also stipulate *that* something is
true, with the same meaning.
Paul Pfalzner
"Padraig Breathnach" <padr...@iol.ie> wrote in message
news:7CBg6.8496$r17....@news.iol.ie...
agreement;
2. to arrange expressly or specify in terms of agreement;
3. to require as an essential condition;
from Am.College Dictionary.
So "allowing etc" is not the meaning, but "demanding" is more like it.
Paul
Alec "Skitt" P.
"Paul Pfalzner" <ai...@freenet.carleton.ca> wrote in message
news:95v3el$gnc$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
MWCD10 says it better:
Main Entry: 1 stip·u·late
Pronunciation: 'sti-py&-"lAt
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -lat·ed; -lat·ing
Etymology: Latin stipulatus, past participle of
stipulari to demand some term in an agreement
Date: circa 1624
intransitive senses
1 : to make an agreement or covenant to do or
forbear something : CONTRACT
2 : to demand an express term in an agreement --
used with for
transitive senses
1 : to specify as a condition or requirement of an
agreement or offer
2 : to give a guarantee of
- stip·u·la·tor /-"lA-t&r/ noun
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area) http://i.am/skitt/
I speak English well -- I learn it from a book!
-- Manuel of "Fawlty Towers" (he's from Barcelona).
Mike Oliver
My meaning is surely by now the *primary* meaning in American English;
I doubt you'll find many Americans who disagree. It seems to be
an extension of meaning 2 -- I may or may not believe x, but
I *contract* to be understood as believing x, for the purposes
of the current discussion.
Padraig Breathnach
Your meaning would not, in my experience, be understood in Europe. I suspect
that the same is true of North America (including Canada).
PB
Alan Jones
"Mike Oliver" <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote in message
news:3A831778...@math.ucla.edu...
This is, then, a potentially serious transPondian difference. I venture
(knowing the risks) to say that "stipulate" in BrE always has the sense of
"specifically require". "Allowing for the sake of argument" might be
expressed by "granting", "supposing", "assuming" . . .
Alan Jones
Mike Oliver
> This is, then, a potentially serious transPondian difference. I venture
> (knowing the risks) to say that "stipulate" in BrE always has the sense of
> "specifically require". "Allowing for the sake of argument" might be
> expressed by "granting", "supposing", "assuming" . . .
Well, these are a little different. You might use them, say, in
a line of argument that's aiming at a contradiction.
When you "stipulate" something, you're not trying to prove it
false, and you're not planning to take it back in the next paragraph.
Rather, you're confident you can hold the day even though
you lose on that point (or at least you don't think it makes
enough difference to your chances to contest it).
I don't ordinarily like to assign novel meanings to words
based on questionable reasoning -- I can't look at "moot" the
same way as I used to, for example. But in this case I
find the concept indispensible, and no other adequate
word. Also, it's by far the most common meaning used for
the word in my experience.
Mike Barnes
>"K. Edgcombe" wrote:
>>
>> In article <3A81DAA7...@math.ucla.edu>,
>> Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> >"Arithmetic" in the strict sense refers to the natural numbers,
>> >not even to the reals. I'll stipulate, though, to your use of
>> >the term "Boolean arithmetic", whose meaning is clear enough.
>>
>
>> The other question is non-mathematical; is this a standard use
>> of "stipulate" in the US? I've a feeling it has come up before
>> and turned out to be some sort of legal term, but to the best of
>> my knowledge this meaning is completely
>> unknown in the UK.
>
>"Stipulate" to me means "allow for the sake of argument". Is
>there another meaning?
To me "stipulate" is a common word as described in NSOED's meaning 2a:
"v.t. Specify or demand, esp. as an essential part or condition of an
agreement, contract, offer, etc".
Mike Oliver's meaning of "stipulate" is unknown to me, and to most Brits
I imagine (it's not in NSOED). Is it lawyerspeak, possibly?
--
Mike Barnes
Peter Moylan
>In article <3A81DAA7...@math.ucla.edu>,
>Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
>>
>>"Arithmetic" in the strict sense refers to the natural numbers,
>>not even to the reals. I'll stipulate, though, to your use of
>>the term "Boolean arithmetic", whose meaning is clear enough.
>
>Two questions on terminology: Whence do you derive your "strict sense"? I am a
>mathematician and I have never heard the term restricted in that way (fractions
>were certainly part of arithmetic when I was at school). Yours may well be
>some sort of original meaning, but is it still seriously used?
In my second or third undergraduate year I took a subject -- well, actually
a topic within a subject -- which I think was entitled 'arithmetic'.
I recall that the text was called 'The Higher Arithmetic'. It dealt
entirely with the natural numbers: primes, factorisation, solvability
of equations in integers, and so on.
It was probably the toughest subject I ever took. I abandoned
Pure Mathematics shortly afterwards, and went back to concentrating
on my Engineering studies.
--
Peter Moylan pe...@ee.newcastle.edu.au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au
Mark Wallace
> In article <95rp7h$i333d$9...@ID-51325.news.dfncis.de>,
> But in the phrase "I couldn't disagree more", which stripped of its
> embellishment simply means "I disagree" or "I do not agree", it is
> pretty clear that we are focused on the proposition at issue, and
> that differing from it (i.e. disagreeing with it) is an inherently
> negative thing for to do. It is natural, in this context, to view
> agreement as positive and disagreement as negative.
*sigh*
'I disagree' is not a negative statement!
The point that it describes an act which you feel is negative is irrelevant.
It is a positive statement. The subject is actively performing the action
of the verb.
'I do not disagree' is a negative statement. The subject is not performing
the action of the verb.
<logic games snipped -- I may well do my program design in Z, but I don't
intend to plan my language usage in the same way!>
John Cartmell
<oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
> Alan Jones wrote:
>
> > This is, then, a potentially serious transPondian difference. I
> > venture (knowing the risks) to say that "stipulate" in BrE always has
> > the sense of "specifically require". "Allowing for the sake of
> > argument" might be expressed by "granting", "supposing", "assuming" .
> > . .
> Well, these are a little different. You might use them, say, in a line
> of argument that's aiming at a contradiction.
It's not English.
--
John Cartmell - Manchester, UK
The next meeting of MAUG on Wednesday 21st February...
..will be... [strictly embargoed]
John Cartmell
<ke...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> This seems to be quite unrelated to your meaning. Would one of those
> people with dozens of splendid dictionaries care to help us out? Any UK
> contributors agree or disagree with my version?
'Allow for the sake of an argument' doesn't appear in any definition I've
encountered.
It's 'require as a condition of an agreement' and used almost solely in
respect of contracts. eg:
'you failed to use the materials stipulated in the contract so will not
receive payment for the work.'
John Cartmell
> > Yes, it is a US legal term that seems to be spreading. It seems to mean
> > "to agree to without argument" or "to waive any demand for formal
> > proof." I must have learned it from legal TV shows.
> Roughly, yes. Another way of putting it might be "I'm not going
> to commit myself as to whether I *really* agree, but for the purposes
> of this discussion, you can assume I agree".
Don't you think you're being rather silly*? Letting lawyers define a legal
term to have two distinct meanings...
*Unless you're a lawyer, of course.
Stephen Toogood
Using the word in this rather lax sense seems almost an act of mischief
on the part of the person who first did so - I suspect not that long
ago. It is as if they realised that the confusion that would inevitably
arise would merely make more work for the legal profession.
The phrase I think you mean is 'admit without prejudice'.
--
Stephen Toogood
Rainer Thonnes
"Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> writes:
>Rainer Thonnes <r...@dcs.ed.ac.uk> schreef in berichtnieuws
>> embellishment simply means "I disagree" or "I do not agree", it is
>> pretty clear that we are focused on the proposition at issue, and
>> that differing from it (i.e. disagreeing with it) is an inherently
>> negative thing for to do. It is natural, in this context, to view
>> agreement as positive and disagreement as negative.
>
>*sigh*
>'I disagree' is not a negative statement!
>The point that it describes an act which you feel is negative is irrelevant.
>It is a positive statement. The subject is actively performing the action
>of the verb.
>'I do not disagree' is a negative statement. The subject is not performing
>the action of the verb.
I couldn't care less whether the statement is *formally* negative,
I'm concerned purely with its *meaning*. For the purpose of my interest
in this discussion it is *less* relevant whether the *statement* is
negative than whether its *overall meaning* is negative.
"I do not X" is only negative in a relative sense, if you regard X as
positive. It all depends on the reference direction, the sense which
we regard as absolute for the purposes of any particular matter of interest.
Let me put it another way. To the question "Do you agree?" the answer
"No, I disagree" is clearly a negative answer, even if you omit the "No,".
Surely you cannot deny that to disagree with a given proposition is to
adopt a negative stance towards it. It is equally as valid for me to
focus on the proposition, to regard it as positive, and to say that
disagreement therewith is therefore negative, as it would be for me to
say that my point of view is the one and only truth, and if it happens
to disagree with a proposition then my disagreement is positive and the
proposition is negative.
Steve Hayes
>
>
>Steve Hayes wrote:
>> [...] as more people have become aware of some basic Boolean
>> algebra, they have begun to apply it to the way they speak and write.
>
>I'm not sure I follow what you're saying. Is it your claim that
>the incidence of the double negative used in English with a negative
>meaning has decreased since schoolchildren began to study computers?
>
>I suppose that could happen, though I know of no evidence that it
>has happened. Even if it has, however, I still see no connection
>between the issue and the rules of arithmetic on ordinary numbers.
My point is that as people have become more aware of some of the basic
principles of Boolean algebra, they have tended to apply those to the way they
speak on the principle that two negatives make a positive.
I was at school before computers were common, and I wasn't very good at
algebra anyway.
But even at school I was aware of that in English.
I knew that the English
I can't not do it
meant precisely the opposite of the Afrikaans
Ek kan dit nie doen nie
Because Afrikans has a double negative (I think from French, because Dutch
doesn't have it)
So the Afrikaans "Ek kan dit nie doen nie" translates into English as "I can't
do it", whereas translating "I can't not do it" into Afrikaans would result in
"Ek moet dit doen" (I must do it).
So "I couldn't disagree more" means the opposite of "I couldn't agree more".
The first means I disagree to the maximum possible extent. The accelerator
pedal of my disagreement is pushed flat to the floor. The engine of my
disagreement is at maximum revs. It cannot rev any faster. On a scale of 0-100
my disagreement is at 100%.
If my disagreement was at 90%, I would disagree, but I could still disagree
more. If my disgreement is at 99.9%, then I disagree, but I could still
disagree more. But if my disagreement is at 100%, then I couldn't disagree
more.
Steve Hayes
http://www.suite101.com/myhome.cfm/methodius
Mike Oliver
> Using the word in this rather lax sense seems almost an act of mischief
> on the part of the person who first did so - I suspect not that long
> ago.
Well, certainly before I was born, and I'm 38.
> It is as if they realised that the confusion that would inevitably
> arise would merely make more work for the legal profession.
>
> The phrase I think you mean is 'admit without prejudice'.
What, instead of "stipulate" in the American sense? I don't
think that works at all.
Mike Oliver
>
> In article <3A830914...@math.ucla.edu>,
> Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
> > Roughly, yes. Another way of putting it might be "I'm not going
> > to commit myself as to whether I *really* agree, but for the purposes
> > of this discussion, you can assume I agree".
>
> Don't you think you're being rather silly*? Letting lawyers define a legal
> term to have two distinct meanings...
>
> *Unless you're a lawyer, of course.
Hey, newbie boy, I don't know if you're out Yank-baiting or
what, but the franchise is already taken in this group. Talk
to KHann or ferg; see if you can buy your way in.
Mike Oliver
>
> In article <3A830914...@math.ucla.edu>,
> Mike Oliver <oli...@math.ucla.edu> wrote:
> > Roughly, yes. Another way of putting it might be "I'm not going
> > to commit myself as to whether I *really* agree, but for the purposes
> > of this discussion, you can assume I agree".
>
> Don't you think you're being rather silly*? Letting lawyers define a legal
> term to have two distinct meanings...
Whether the lawyers did it or not, it is now a principal meaning, if
not *the* principal meaning, in Mainland English (to use Richard's
lovely term).
R Fontana
> Whether the lawyers did it or not, it is now a principal meaning, if
> not *the* principal meaning, in Mainland English (to use Richard's
> lovely term).
As far as I know, that term was coined by R.J. Valentine. I don't use it
much since I know some of the Rightpondians don't like it.
John Cartmell
<Pine.GSO.4.10.101020...@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu>,
Quite so! I'm not too happy with that odd term "Mainland English", either.
Does it refer to the English spoken north of the Solent?
Alan Jones
Thank you: I now understand what "stipulate" means to you in America, and why
other single words won't do (presumably there must be circumlocutions to make
the same sense). I said "potentially serious" because of the
misunderstandings that might well arise in legal proceedings where people
from both side of the Pond are involved, or indeed in politics. I'd never
come across the US sense until it appeared in this thread: it isn't in NSOED,
which is usually quite good on US/UK differences, nor in OED.
Some of our differences are merely intriguing or amusing, but this one could
be dangerous.
Alan Jones
Steve Hayes
>> Quite so. "Stipulate":1. to make an express demand as a condition of
>> agreement;
>> 2. to arrange expressly or specify in terms of agreement;
>> 3. to require as an essential condition;
>> from Am.College Dictionary.
>>
>> So "allowing etc" is not the meaning, but "demanding" is more like it.
>
>My meaning is surely by now the *primary* meaning in American English;
>I doubt you'll find many Americans who disagree. It seems to be
>an extension of meaning 2 -- I may or may not believe x, but
>I *contract* to be understood as believing x, for the purposes
>of the current discussion.
Perhaps you are confusing it with "postulate".
Steve Hayes
http://www.suite101.com/myhome.cfm/methodius
Mike Barnes
Does this new (to me) meaning of stipulate require the "to" following?
I've seen examples of "stipulate to <something>" (your stipulate: assume
something for the sake of argument) and I've seen examples "stipulate
that <something>" (my stipulate: require something as a condition of
agreement). Can the "that" or "to" following the word "stipulate" be
taken to indicate which meaning is intended?
--
Mike Barnes
Mike Oliver
Oops, sorry about that. Actually I agree that the term is unnecessarily
provocative, except when dealing with Yank-baiters.
Mike Oliver
> Does this new (to me) meaning of stipulate require the "to" following?
> I've seen examples of "stipulate to <something>" (your stipulate: assume
> something for the sake of argument) and I've seen examples "stipulate
> that <something>" (my stipulate: require something as a condition of
> agreement). Can the "that" or "to" following the word "stipulate" be
> taken to indicate which meaning is intended?
No, "stipulate that" can certainly be used with the same meaning.
"Your honor, the defense stipulates that the defendant was in
Los Angeles on the night in question."
Are you American? .com isn't always American, but I thought
usually, and I'm truly startled if an American finds this
usage unusual.
Simon R. Hughes
I don't know about those who don't like it, but some of us *prefer* to
use words that are less context-dependent, in non-fiction prose
(redundancy?). It helps the reader.
--
Simon R. Hughes -- http://www.geocities.com/a57998/subconscious/
Quoting Usenet postings in follow-ups --
http://www.geocities.com/a57998/quote.html
Mike Oliver
Nope. I know what postulate means, and this ain't it.
A stipulation is a calculated concession in an adversary
situation.
Padraig Breathnach
>
>Nope. I know what postulate means, and this ain't it.
>A stipulation is a calculated concession in an adversary
>situation.
Anybody else agree with this stipulation?
PB
Mike Barnes
>
>> Does this new (to me) meaning of stipulate require the "to" following?
>> I've seen examples of "stipulate to <something>" (your stipulate: assume
>> something for the sake of argument) and I've seen examples "stipulate
>> that <something>" (my stipulate: require something as a condition of
>> agreement). Can the "that" or "to" following the word "stipulate" be
>> taken to indicate which meaning is intended?
>
>No, "stipulate that" can certainly be used with the same meaning.
>"Your honor, the defense stipulates that the defendant was in
>Los Angeles on the night in question."
Thanks.
>Are you American? .com isn't always American, but I thought
>usually, and I'm truly startled if an American finds this
>usage unusual.
No, I'm English. But I thought Skitt found it unusual, and didn't people
quote American dictionaries that omitted this meaning?
--
Mike Barnes
Alan Jones
> Are you American? .com isn't always American, but I thought
> usually, and I'm truly startled if an American finds this
> usage unusual.
There are many British .com addresses, especially for long-established web
sites with a potentially international readership.
Your sense for "stipulate" isn't in the internet versions of Cambridge D of
Am E, or Merriam-Webster Collegiate, or American Heritage 4. Is it a fairly
recent sense, and perhaps a lawyers' "term of art"? I'd be grateful if you
could compose a little paragraph putting "stipulate" into a likely context to
show sense and grammatical usage: "stipulate to" sounds really strange to my
ear.
Alan Jones
Mike Oliver
Alan Jones wrote:
> Your sense for "stipulate" isn't in the internet versions of
> Cambridge D of Am E, or Merriam-Webster Collegiate, or American
> Heritage 4.
That is certainly odd.
> Is it a fairly recent sense,
Well, it can't be *that* recent. I recall that it was used
in Heinlein's "I will fear no evil* " which I think came out
in '75 or so.
> and perhaps a lawyers' "term of art"?
Lawyers are certainly the most likely to say it, but to
me it would not seem out of place in any formalized argument.
> I'd be grateful if you could compose a little paragraph putting
> "stipulate" into a likely context to show sense and grammatical
> usage: "stipulate to" sounds really strange to my
> ear.
Imagine a sidebar: "Your honor, plaintiffs wish to call John
Jones to show that my client was in the Qwik-E-Mart at the time
of the incident"
"Your honor, the defense contends that this witness is being called
because of his effect on the jury, given his status as a movie star.
We will stipulate to the client's presence in the Qwik-E-Mart; therefore,
Jones's testimony is irrelevant and plaintiffs should not be allowed
to call him."
* One of his worst novels, by the way. I'd perhaps put it above
"The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" (but maybe not) and certainly
below even "The Number of the Beast". But it still had some enjoyable
moments -- even the very worst Heinlein did.
Steve Hayes
>> Perhaps you are confusing it with "postulate".
>
>Nope. I know what postulate means, and this ain't it.
>A stipulation is a calculated concession in an adversary
>situation.
I've never heard it used that way, that's why I wondered if it was a
malapropism.
I've heard a number of people use "ascribe" when they mean "subscribe", as in
"I don't ascribe to that view".
Is there perhaps another word that people could be confusing with "stipulate"?
Steve Hayes
http://www.suite101.com/myhome.cfm/methodius
Steve Hayes
>No, "stipulate that" can certainly be used with the same meaning.
>"Your honor, the defense stipulates that the defendant was in
>Los Angeles on the night in question."
I would take that as being synonymous with "insists" - is that what is meant?
Steve Hayes
http://www.suite101.com/myhome.cfm/methodius