Are you doubly positive about that?

This was posted to linguine, the list-serv of the linguistics department at Northeastern Illinois University:

A linguistics professor was lecturing his class.

“In English,” he explained, “a double negative forms a positive.  In
some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative.”

“However,” the professor continued, “there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.”

A voice from the back of the room piped up.  “Yeah, right.”

Posted by Nathan Bierma on 04/02 at 04:29 PM
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