Re: Entourage-Talk Digest - 12/16/03

[Agnes]

Title: Re: Entourage-Talk Digest - 12/16/03

This conversation on languages reminds me of one I heard yesterday – a group of Japanese were speaking with an American engineer, their translator, also Japanese, was doing a literal translation. The question was "Will it explode when you do thus and so?" She exactly quoted the reply from the engineer, who used a double negative – "No it will not explode when you do thus and so". The Japanese looked puzzled and someone offered this suggestion – never use the double negative, Japanese do not understand the reply to that question should have been "Yes, it will not explode when you do thus and so".  All of us have been taught to avoid a double negative but how many of us actually do so, or how many of us actually correct our children when they do it, to the degree that those children will consistently use the proper form.

Agnes Cloninger