another (over)negation?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Some people just can't handle more than one negative in a sentence. (I don't
mean "double negatives" in the usual sense; I mean short-attention-span
syntax.)

I've heard similar confused statements on the news a number of times in the
last few weeks. It's almost as though a new "rule" is being created in the
spirit of, but more insidious than, "is-is."

JL

On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 3:35 PM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      another (over)negation?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Twitter from Chuck Todd (NBC News):
>
> > Cannot believe reports about bogus cost of president's trip didn't
> > pass smell test with so many folks. Ridiculous that it got any traction
>
> I thought "not passing the smell test" was "being unbelievable". He
> seems to imply just the opposite here--too many people /believed/ the
> bogus report.
>
>     VS-)
>
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>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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