Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:39:38 +1030 | From | David Newall <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] NET: fix wrong English expression in comments |
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Alan Cox wrote: >> "Don't add nothing," is not a colloquialism; it's just bad grammar. The >> > > It's a matter of dialect. For historical reasons English emerged from a > mix of languages and cultures (even within the UK). In some of the > originating languages and areas a double negative is emphatic in others > it negates the negation. Thus it is a bad idea when using globally - as > nobody is quite sure what you mean.
There's an amusing story about a lecture, in which the professor was saying that in many cultures, in many languages, a double negative becomes a positive, but that nowhere did a double positive become a negative. From the back of the class drifted a bored, "yeah, yeah!"
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