Hardly ... not

[Mark Mandel]

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 3:01 PM, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 06:55:36PM +0000, ronbutters at AOL.COM wrote:
> > Yup. Multiple negation of emphasis, not the prescriptivist's multneg. (And aren't you glad you don't have to scroll all the way down just to read "Yup"?
>
> Quite to the contrary, I had to scroll all the way down to
> learn what statement your "Yup" was agreeing with.
>
> So I had to read your response first, then the original
> statement it answered, and then your response again to
> understand it in context.

Pree-zackly (Pogo, IIRC). Top-posting often assumes that the reader
has the context in mind, which is much less likely on a list like this
than in a two- or three-person exchange by email.

mam

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