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From: debray@sbcs.UUCP (Saumya Debray)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Re: Double negatives, and Russian
Message-ID: <435@sbcs.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Aug-83 12:34:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: sbcs.435
Posted: Sat Aug  6 12:34:55 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Aug-83 22:43:05 EDT
References: <489@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: SUNY at Stony Brook
Lines: 9


In fact, double negation does have its place, because English does not
follow simple binary logic: thus, "not bad" is not *strictly* equivalent
to "good" (if it were, the speaker would have *said* "good"), but means
something like "neither bad nor good, but so-so". The double negation
can be used to convey more information in this way.

Saumya Debray
SUNY at Stony Brook