"Reason For Optimism? Two Sides Talking On Debt Ceiling", NPR Morning Edition, 10/11/2013: STEVE INSKEEP: What prompted Republicans to change course? MARA LIASSON: They were losing. They were just getting battered politically. And here's a pretty good example of what was happening to the Republican political position. This is a new Wall Street Journal-NBC poll. […]
The mess in Washington is providing plenty of opportunities for misnegation. Today, John Bresnahan at Politico got tangled up in budging and cut loose with a classic — "Bad blood: Four feuding leaders": But the personal animus extends beyond the leaders. Along with their bosses, aides to Boehner and Reid are in an undeclared war […]
Two Guys and Guy for 5/29/2013 offers a rare case of litotes with the classical motivation of modesty:
Some time ago, R.I. sent in this quotation from Golf World, 6/3/2013: Because Irwin is the oldest U.S. Open champion—45 when he defeated Mike Donald in a playoff at Medinah CC in 1990—and won his last PGA Tour event, the 1994 MCI Heritage, when he was 48, there seemed little doubt his skill set wouldn't […]
From reader V.D.: Justice Kennedy got himself tangled in a quasi-double negative in today's DOMA decision: Windsor suffered a redressable injury when she was required to pay a tax from which, in her view, she was exempt but for the alleged invalidity of § 3 of DOMA. Either "but for" or "invalidity" is wrong. If […]
From JF, here's one for the misnegation files, undernegation department: According to the Sun Sport Live Match Centre: With all but a monumental collapse now standing between Manchester United and a record 20th league title, all eyes turn to who will win the fight between the alsorans for second place.
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Kevin & Kell for 2/16/2013: Among the various misnegation explanations, "negative concord" seems to fit this one best.
From David Denison: Not sure where this fits in the misnegation scheme of things. On Jazz Record Requests (BBC Radio 3, 19 Jan 17:00) the presenter quoted a listener's request as follows: I think that not many listeners will be familiar with this track – and should be.
An old favorite for the misnegation files:
Earlier today, "Patriot Voices" (Rick Santorum's PAC) sent out an email containing the following paragraph: I strongly oppose President Obama's nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense because his confirmation would send a dangerous signal to Iran and other radical Islamic elements which would make our country and our allies less secure. Not only […]
This post hits a trifecta of LLOG themes: the troublesome interaction of multiple negations with scalar predicates that we call "misnegation"; the flexible phrasal or conceptual templates we call "snowclones"; and the multiplication of careless variant quotations. It started when a friend, in conversation, said something like "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the […]
John Podheretz, tweeting about Wayne LaPierre's proposal to put armed guards in every American school: The awful part of what LaPierre just did is until he spoke there was nothing uncontroversial about having security at schools — John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) December 21, 2012 When he wrote "… there was nothing uncontroversial about …", he clearly meant […]
So Pete Wells (who is the NYT's restaurant critic) wrote an epically bad review of Guy Fieri's American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square (sample line: "Somewhere within the yawning, three-level interior of Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar, is there a long refrigerated tunnel that servers have to pass through to make sure that the […]