McCain's dim view of the current crop of presidential candidates doesn't support the notion that they are "utterly destroying" negative stereotypes about Republicans, as several people pointed out. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I saw a sticker on the lid of a pedal-operated hospital waste bin that said this:
THIS SACK HOLDER IS SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO BE FOOT OPERATED ONLY. THE LID MUST NOT BE HAND OPERATED AND PUSHED PAST THE POINT WHERE IT WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY RETURN TO THE CLOSED POSITION.
Everyone who uses the bin sees this notice; maybe some even read it and try to respect it; but perhaps only Language Log readers will notice that it contains a misnegation — another sign that the number of negations within a sentence that our poor monkey brains can successfully handle averages out at little more than 1.
In the 10/4/15 issue of the Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn has a sympathetic look at Chinglish: "Cultural sensitivity lost — and found — in translation". He offers the following sign at a museum near Datong as a prime specimen:
Rubio’s up-from-nothing life story is inspiring. “I live in an exceptional country where even the son of a bartender and a maid can have the same dreams and the same future as those who come from power and privilege,” he said. How can you not help but puff out your chest in pride for the promise of this nation?
This seems to be a blend of "How can you help but puff out your chest in pride?" and "How can you not puff out your chest in pride?".
Such expressions are fertile ground for misnegation: Given the combination of explicit or implicit negation with a question and an implicit scalar predicate (here the strength of the chest-puffing motivation), how can you not help but not throw in an extra negation or two?
This example of hypernegation (it that's what it is) was sent to me by Karl Zimmer:
From a review by Hilton Als of the play "The Madrid" in The New Yorker (3/11/2013; p. 76):
In a recent interview, Falco pointed out how infrequently she's offered "first dibs" on new plays. She explained, "I get offered them, but only after other people turn them down." Given that Falco is, artistically speaking, the heir to the late Maureen Stapleton–another toweringly talented actress who insisted on bare truth, not truthiness, in her performances– it's no small wonder that producers consider her a commercial risk…
This looks more to me like a blend of no wonder and small wonder than it does of negation-gone-wild. But of course that's just a guess.
Ben Yagoda spotted a nice case of overnegation on NPR's "Morning Edition" earlier today, when Renee Montagne interviewed political science professor Michael McDonald about early voting. After explaining that Obama was leading in early voting in Nevada, McDonald said, "I don't want to discourage people from not voting today."
The Metropolitan Opera on Tuesday backed away from its decision to bar reviews of its productions in Opera News, its affiliated magazine and the leading opera publication in the country.
The Met said an “outpouring of reaction” from opera fans on the Internet caused it to change course a day after The New York Times reported that Met officials and the publishers of Opera News had decided to stop reviewing Met shows.
“I think I made a mistake,” said Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager. “The Metropolitan Opera only exists with the good will of the public. Clearly the public would miss Opera News not being able to review the Met, and we are responding to that,” he added, referring to a “groundswell of disappointment.”
Almost the end of January, and not a single Language Log reader hasn't failed to complain about the lack of over-negation in any of this year's posts. But here's some naughtily nutty negation anyway:
"It's not that I don't doubt the sincerity of their desire to protect the talent. And believe it or not, we have the same ambition," Christian Mann, general manager of Evil Angel Productions who also serves on the porn industry's Free Speech Coalition, said last week after the council's vote. "We just don't believe their way is the best way." (Associated Press, LA mayor signs law requiring condoms in porn films, Jan. 24, 2012; widely syndicated story.)
Hmm. That's a curious lack of non-self-doubt. So does it mean Mann does in fact doubt the sincerity of "their" desire to protect the talent? I don't think so.
Once again on the Newtnegation watch… In last night's Republican debate in Iowa, Gingrich defended his previous support of an individual mandate for health care insurance. He explained that he held this stance back in 1993, when he was combating so-called "Hillarycare":
I frankly was floundering, trying to find a way to make sure that people who could afford it were paying their hospital bills, while still leaving an out for libertarians to not buy insurance. (video)
ABC is proving itself to be the Newt not network. Earlier this month, Newt Gingrich provided a puzzling (but technically correct) instance of negation in an interview with Jake Tapper of ABC News: "It's very hard not to look at the recent polls and think that the odds are very high I'm going to be the nominee." Last night, after the Republican presidential debate in Iowa sponsored by ABC News, political analyst Matthew Dowd made a surprising observation on Gingrich's performance:
There was not a single attack tonight that he did not not engage on.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Geoff Pullum is, of course, right on the money when he points out that our frequent difficulties in interpreting multiple negations indicate that we are all "semantic over-achievers, trying to use languages that are quite a bit beyond our intellectual powers." Or, as Mark Liberman once put it, negation often overwhelms our "poor monkey brains." (For more, see Mark's master list of Language Log posts on misnegation woes.) Yesterday, Newt Gingrich provided a nice example of the trickiness of negation: even though what he said was technically correct, it was still difficult for some to parse.
Following up on Never fails: semantic over-achievers, Language Log reader John O'Meara told me that he recently received a gift voucher on which one of the legally binding conditions is the following:
6. Cash nor credit will not be issued for balance of gift voucher not redeemed in full.
He has absolutely no clear sense of what this does (or does not) entitle him to. Nor does Language Log. Not. One stares at it, and although one can guess at what was probably supposed to be the policy, one fails to extract a statement of it from the above wording using just the syntax and semantics of one's native language. At least, that's how it is for me (your mileage may differ). In particular, if you make the initial noun phrase grammatical by prefixing neither, you get something that is almost certainly the opposite of what was meant (Neither cash nor credit will not be issued for balance of gift voucher not redeemed in full means that both cash and credit will be issued).
