Is "what i wouldn't pay to see" a double negative...

[bosod...@gmail.com]

or not?

[Joe Fineman]

bosod...@gmail.com writes:

> or not?

Certainly not; there's only one negative in it.

However, I have trouble imagining an appropriate context. Perhaps

I would pay to see him apologize for once. What I wouldn't pay to
see is for him to make a fool of himself again.

In case you don't mind my second-guessing you, did you perhaps mean
"What wouldn't I pay to see" -- e.g.,

What wouldn't I pay to see that notion squelched forever?

That's a rhetorical question implying "I'd pay a lot...". Once again,
there's only one negative in it.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net

||: When you have taken a wrong turn, a step backward is a step :||
||: in the right direction. :||

[snide...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, August 26, 2015 at 2:39:17 PM UTC-7, bosod...@gmail.com wrote:

[Is "what i wouldn't pay to see" a double negative...]
> or not?

I'm not seeing double.

A complete sentence sample might be different, though. Is there a particular
occurrence that led to the question being asked?

[And I'd have put "..." in the body to indicate a resumption from the pause
in the subject, even though it's better to have a complete thought in the body.]

/dps

[Eric Walker]

On Wed, 26 Aug 2015 14:39:15 -0700, bosodeniro wrote:

> or not?

Not. But it's one of those silly contradictions in terms analogous to "I
could care less."

[bosod...@gmail.com]

dontcha mean 'i couldn't care less'?

[Eric Walker]

No, I didn't: that was the point. "I could care less" actually means the
opposite of what it is trying to convey; likewise, "What I wouldn't pay"
is in opposition to its intended sense ("What I would pay").

[bosod...@gmail.com]

what's the generic technical term for the construction "What I wouldn't pay", and why does it work?

[Eric Walker]

On Thu, 27 Aug 2015 19:30:53 -0700, bosodeniro wrote:

[...]

> what's the generic technical term for the construction "What I wouldn't
> pay", and why does it work?

I believe the term of art is "silly". It works because many people are,
apparently, unable to distinguish between "What wouldn't I pay" and "What
I wouldn't pay".

[Robert Bannister]

To me, it means "There is nothing I would not pay" - oh, I see, that's a
double negative but the other isn't.

--
Robert Bannister
Perth, Western Australia

[bosod...@gmail.com]

You wanna clean it up? Okay lemme have a crack at it then! Howzabout "What I wouldn't take umbrage, decline, and refuse to pay." -- Shakespeare eat your heart out.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote in
news:d4cdhl...@mid.individual.net:

How is 'There is nothing I would not pay' a double negative? The usual
claim about double negatives is that the two negatives 'cancel each
other out,' e.g., 'I haven't got none' supposedly reduces to 'I have got
some': in such a case the preferred construction among usage prigs is 'I
haven't got any.' But even a usage prig would hardly say 'There is
anything I would not pay,' and 'There is nothing I would pay' means
something quite different.
--
S.O.P.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote in
news:mrp0el$4cj$1...@dont-email.me:

Or it works because many people realize that the two constructions are
functionally identical, and preferring one over the other is purely a
matter of taste.
--
S.O.P.

[Eric Walker]

No. I have no idea what concept of "functionally identical" is being
invoked here, but the phrases have substantially different meanings.
That they are taken to be fungible is owing to the inability of many
people to understand their native tongue. Preferring "I couldn't care
less" to "I could care less" is not "purely a matter of taste" (save
perhaps to those with none) and neither is the subject distinction.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote in

news:mrrlb2$pqe$1...@dont-email.me:

> On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 05:50:56 +0000, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>
>> Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote in
>> news:mrp0el$4cj$1...@dont-email.me:
>>
>>> On Thu, 27 Aug 2015 19:30:53 -0700, bosodeniro wrote:
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>>> what's the generic technical term for the construction "What I
>>>> wouldn't pay", and why does it work?
>>>
>>> I believe the term of art is "silly". It works because many people
>>> are, apparently, unable to distinguish between "What wouldn't I pay"
>>> and "What I wouldn't pay".
>>
>> Or it works because many people realize that the two constructions
>> are functionally identical, and preferring one over the other is
>> purely a matter of taste.
>
> No.

Yes.

> I have no idea what concept of "functionally identical" is being
> invoked here, but the phrases have substantially different meanings.

Please explain the substantial difference in meaning between the phrase
used in the sentence 'What I wouldn't pay for a sandwich on real bread'
(an actual sentence written by someone suffering from celiac disease)
and the phrase used in the sentence 'What wouldn't I pay for a sandwich
on real bread.' Be specific.

> That they are taken to be fungible is owing to the inability of many
> people to understand their native tongue.

Does that include people who misuse legal terms because of an apparent
unfamiliarity with such words as 'equivalent'?

> Preferring "I couldn't care less" to "I could care less" is not
> "purely a matter of taste" (save perhaps to those with none) and
> neither is the subject distinction.

What subject distinction would that be?
--
S.O.P.

[Robert Bannister]

I follow your reasoning, but not nothing is odd.

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Robert Bannister <rob...@clubtelco.com> wrote in

news:d4f14h...@mid.individual.net:

It's a natural English idiom: a number of notable writers have deployed
it in dialogue and narration, e.g., Charles Dickens, in *Bleak House*:

'I do assure you both, there's nothing I wouldn't do to discharge
this obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together,
has gone every two months in keeping it up...'

And Anthony Trollope:

'Surely we can do something. Can't we get it in the papers that he
must be innocent,- so that everybody should be made to think so? And
if we could get hold of the lawyers, and make them not want to - to
destroy him! There's nothing I wouldn't do...'

And Edith Wharton:

She was a delicate-looking lady, but when she smiled I felt there
was nothing I wouldn't do for her.

Oscar Wilde put the phrase in Lord Illingworth's mouth in *A Woman of No
Importance*: 'To win back my youth, Gerald, there is nothing I wouldn't
do - except take exercise, get up early or be a useful member of the
community.' P.G. Wodehouse used it in first-person narration: 'She made
me feel that there was nothing I wouldn't do for her. She was rather
like one of those innocent-tasting American drinks which creep
imperceptibly into your system so that, before you know what you're
doing, you're starting out to reform the world by force if necessary and
pausing on your way to tell the large man in the corner that, if he
looks at you like that, you will knock his head off.'

If it sounds odd to modern ears, I think it's only because most of the
other double- (and triple-, and even quadruple-) negative constructions
that were once common have been chased out of common usage.
--
S.O.P.

[Jerry Friedman]

The equivalent without a double negative is "I would pay anything."

>> I follow your reasoning, but not nothing is odd.
>
> It's a natural English idiom: a number of notable writers have deployed
> it in dialogue and narration, e.g., Charles Dickens, in *Bleak House*:
>
> 'I do assure you both, there's nothing I wouldn't do to discharge
> this obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together,
> has gone every two months in keeping it up...'

...

[snip other examples]

>
> If it sounds odd to modern ears, I think it's only because most of the
> other double- (and triple-, and even quadruple-) negative constructions
> that were once common have been chased out of common usage.

Apparently you now know the answer to your question above, "How is
'There is nothing I would not pay' a double negative?" I agree with you
that it's a double negative. It doesn't sound odd to me at all. In
fact, I have a strong tendency to use such constructions. However, I
think they're often unnecessarily complicated, so I not infrequently
edit my writing to make it less indirect.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Eric Walker]

On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 16:53:21 +0000, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:

[...]

> Please explain the substantial difference in meaning between the phrase
> used in the sentence 'What I wouldn't pay for a sandwich on real bread'
> (an actual sentence written by someone suffering from celiac disease)
> and the phrase used in the sentence 'What wouldn't I pay for a sandwich

> on real bread.' Be specific. . . .

The form "what I wouldn't pay" invites the listener to imagine a list,
potentially very long, of various costs that the speaker would not pay
for the thing in question--that is, that his or her desire has very
definite limits. "What wouldn't I pay" invites the realization that
there is no cost that the speaker would not be willing to pay--that is,
that his or her desire is metaphorically infinite.

'Kay?

>> Preferring "I couldn't care less" to "I could care less" is not "purely
>> a matter of taste" (save perhaps to those with none) and neither is the
>> subject distinction.
>
> What subject distinction would that be?

The one that was the original subject of this discussion.

[Eric Walker]

On Sun, 30 Aug 2015 21:36:38 -0600, Jerry Friedman wrote:

[...]

> Apparently you now know the answer to your question above, "How is
> 'There is nothing I would not pay' a double negative?" I agree with you
> that it's a double negative. It doesn't sound odd to me at all. In
> fact, I have a strong tendency to use such constructions. However, I
> think they're often unnecessarily complicated, so I not infrequently
> edit my writing to make it less indirect.

I think the problem is that the phrase "double negative" radiates an aura
of impropriety, owing to its often being used as a description of doubled
negatives used to reinforce negativity rather than yield a net positive
("I don't got none" for "I don't have any" versus "not infrequently" for
"frequently").

"There is nothing I would not pay" is a net positive: I would pay
anything. (Obviously only a metaphoric meaning.)

[Sneaky O. Possum]

Eric Walker <em...@owlcroft.com> wrote in

news:msaoff$1s0$2...@dont-email.me:

> On Sat, 29 Aug 2015 16:53:21 +0000, Sneaky O. Possum wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>> Please explain the substantial difference in meaning between the
>> phrase used in the sentence 'What I wouldn't pay for a sandwich on
>> real bread' (an actual sentence written by someone suffering from
>> celiac disease) and the phrase used in the sentence 'What wouldn't I
>> pay for a sandwich on real bread.' Be specific. . . .
>
> The form "what I wouldn't pay" invites the listener to imagine a list,
> potentially very long, of various costs that the speaker would not pay
> for the thing in question--that is, that his or her desire has very
> definite limits.

What one imagines a hypothetical listener may be invited to imagine by a
construction one dislikes is hardly pertinent. Are you saying that you,
personally, get confused by the construction? If not, do you know of
anyone else who's actually been confused? If not, do you have any actual
basis for claiming there's a substantial difference in meaning?

> "What wouldn't I pay" invites the realization that
> there is no cost that the speaker would not be willing to pay--that
> is, that his or her desire is metaphorically infinite.
>
> 'Kay?

It seems to me that a listener so thoroughly unfamiliar with normal
English usage as to be misled by the construction 'What I wouldn't pay
...' would be just as likely to be misled by the construction 'What
wouldn't I pay ...' I suspect that you simply prefer the latter
construction to the former but are either unwilling or unable to
recognize that it's purely a matter of taste.

>>> Preferring "I couldn't care less" to "I could care less" is not
>>> "purely a matter of taste" (save perhaps to those with none) and
>>> neither is the subject distinction.
>>
>> What subject distinction would that be?
>
> The one that was the original subject of this discussion.

Wasn't the original subject of this discussion the distinction
between 'What I wouldn't pay ...' and 'What wouldn't I pay ...'? That's
nothing to do with 'subject distinction.'
--
S.O.P.

[Eric Walker]

I give up. (Take that as you will.)

[Tony Cooper]

The correct response would have been: What I wouldn't give to know.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida