Replying to a negative question

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Don't forget Russian, where the negative reply to "You don't have any bananas, do you" is "Yes, we have no bananas." (i.e., Yes you are right in your assumption that I have no bananas.) Hence the popular song of the early 20th century. The songwriter must have heard this phrase spoken in English by a Russian immigrant.
 
About 1965 the Mafia boss Joe Bonano (nickname: Joe Bananas) was due in court for a hearing, and the reporters were out in force to cover the event.  They waited and waited, but Bonano never did show up.  At one point there was a moment of levity as the reporters in unison burst into song: "Yes, we have no Bananas, we have no Bananas today."
 
Gerald Cohen

________________________________

From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Joel S. Berson
Sent: Sun 12/23/2007 11:47 PM

<snip>

There are also differences from English in other languages, such as
Japanese, I believe.  (If a native Japanese speaker is asked a
question in English phrased in the negative, he is likely to reply
"no" when the native English speaker would reply "yes", and vice versa.)

Joel

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