A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. “In English,” he said, “A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.”
A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”
Safe Investment
not true a double negative can often be used to make the negative more strong
“I aint got no money”
“no way, no how”
“No, dont do that”
“I ain’t got no money” means you have money. I remember I went to McDonalds once long long ago and asked for a thickshake, and was told “We ain’t got no shakes”… As I was massively hung over at the time I unthinkingly assumed she was asking what flavour I wanted. She though I was dense. I didn’t get my thickshake that day. Good times, good times.
Besides, nobody doesn’t not dislike a quadruple negative!
This isn’t just a joke. The theory is real, the linguistics professor was J.L. Austin, and the voice in the back of the room belonged to Sidney Morgenbesser. According to people present, he was reported to have said “yeah, yeah” instead of “yeah, right.”
Heard often on radio from supposedly trained newswriters: “Everybody doesn’t have [whatever],” which means, “Nobody has [whatever].” What they really mean is: “Not everybody has [whatever].” Some people have and some don’t. Education has withered in this country.