Heard on Judge Joe Brown:

[Charles Doyle]

My favorite example of multiple negation for emphasis is Chaucer's Parson's paraphrase of Job 10:22: ". . . in helle is noon ordre of rule. And al be it so that God hath creat alle thynges in right ordre, and no thyng withouten ordre, but alle thynges been ordeyned and nombred; yet, natheless, they that been dampned been nothying in ordre, ne holden noon ordre." Of course, the "point" here is the negativity of the place--the absence of God's presence (so to speak).

--Charlie
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2007 20:47:45 -0400
>From: James Harbeck <jharbeck at SYMPATICO.CA>
>
>>"Didn't no kid ride no bicycle into no house!"
>
>I love this. The negative concordance is so thoroughgoing! "Logical" analysis (which insists that double negatives are positives) should hand in its foil and weep in the face of the efficacy of phrases such as this. It brings to mind vulgar concordance, as in the classic phrase "Fuck off, ya fuckin' fuck" and, rather more loosely, one I recently saw, "Our good shit makes their shit look like shit."
>
>James Harbeck.

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