"Don't rock the boat!"

[Laurence Horn]

At 12:47 PM -0400 10/11/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 10:53 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net>
>wrote, quoting Larry:
>
>>>  > With him were uncounted millions of others, and now the murmur he had
>>>  > heard from outside the door resolved itself into words as everyone,
>>>  > standing strainedly on tiptoe, kept muttering, without quite daring to
>>>  > open his mouth, "Don't make waves! Don't make waves!"
>
>I'd like to make one more emendation, besides the addition of the
>devil firing up a hydroplane. Since the guy who told the story to me
>was also black, the way that I heard originally it, the murmur
>resolved itself into:
>
>"Don't make _no_ waves! Don't make _no_ waves!" :-)
>--
And hopefully the hearer correctly interpreted this as negative
concord rather than double negation!

LH

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