nothing is better

[Larry Horn]

At 9:14 PM -0500 5/10/99, Joseph McCollum wrote:
>On Fri, 7 May 1999 14:27:08 -0500 Greg Pulliam <pulliam at EMAIL.IIT.EDU>
>writes:
>>As long as we're looking into things like "looks like rain," can
>>anyone explain the nature of the ambiguity in a phrase we hear all
>>the time in commercials:  "nothing is better for x than y."  The
>>obvious sense is, of course, that "(there is) nothing (that) is
>>better for x than y."  But the other, almost opposite sense has
>>always struck me: "(using) nothing is better for x than (using) y."
>>
>Here's one from High School Algebra:
>
>1)      A loaf of bread is better than nothing
>2)      Nothing is better than God, therefore
>3)      A loaf of bread is better than God.
>
>Actually, "nothing" in the first case refers to zero, but "nothing" in
>the second case refers to the empty set.
>
Proof that you have ten tails, adapted from a medieval sophism (those
medievals were fond of playing with "nothing", as of course was
Odysseus/Ulysses--you may remember that shtik he pulled on the Cyclops,
first introducing himself as Mr. No-man, then stabbing him with a fiery
spear, whence poor Polyphemos cries out to no avail "No-man is killing
me!"):

(1)     No cat has ten tails.
(2)     You are no cat.
(3)     Therefore, you have ten tails.


Larry