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6th July 2018, 06:44 AM | #121 |
Penultimate Amazing
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There is no Antimemetics Division. |
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6th July 2018, 06:48 AM | #122 |
Penultimate Amazing
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All of them? Don't you have the i-a-o combination at all? In Denmark, it's also used in many nursery rhymes, and Huey, Dewey & Louie are called Rip, Rap & Rup in Danish translations. |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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6th July 2018, 09:53 AM | #123 |
Skeptical about skeptics
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6th July 2018, 09:58 AM | #124 |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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6th July 2018, 10:19 AM | #125 |
Penultimate Amazing
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6th July 2018, 10:29 AM | #126 |
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7th July 2018, 07:54 AM | #127 |
Loggerheaded, earth-vexing fustilarian
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8th July 2018, 09:05 AM | #128 |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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8th July 2018, 10:07 AM | #129 |
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I will have to take your word for it since I can't find a literal translation of the words.
The most common meaning of the phrase seems to be "I don't understand anything" but since that does not contain a double negative it may not be a literal translation. https://www.linguee.com/spanish-engl...endo+nada.html |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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8th July 2018, 12:47 PM | #130 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Google translate suggests either: I don't understand anything or I understand nothing. Depending on the context, it might also be: I don't understand what you're saying or I don't get it.
If you look up the words one at a time: entiendo: I understand no: not nada: nothing |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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8th July 2018, 12:51 PM | #131 |
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Do you deny that other language have "double negatives" in their sentence structure without losing understandability and clarity?
If so, you're wrong. If not this nitpick serves no purpose. Literally millions of people use languages with "double negatives" everyday without lose of clarity or precision. This is an undeniable fact. You can not like double negatives as a matter of style or fashion or personal preference, but the argument that it in any objective makes the language les clear or less precise is demonstrably false. |
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"If everyone in the room says water is wet and I say it's dry that makes me smart because at least I'm thinking for myself!" - The Proudly Wrong. |
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8th July 2018, 02:18 PM | #132 |
Loggerheaded, earth-vexing fustilarian
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Much the same in Greek, which also has a word for 'negation of the following', much like the No in Spanish.
(In Greeklish): Echo tipota - I have nothing. Dthen echo tipota - Not I have nothing tipota, meanwhile, does not translate as 'anything' in other contexts, which would avoid the double negative. It's a pure 'nothing' word. Caution - my command of Greek is carp, but MrsB confirms all this. |
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12th July 2018, 02:49 AM | #133 |
Penultimate Amazing
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French too, I think: "Je ne sais pas", "I don't know," with one of the two negations being superfluous: French language: pas
ETA: Maybe it's a Mediterranean thing! |
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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12th July 2018, 04:32 AM | #134 |
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And in Afrikaans:
I don't know what it is. Ek weet nie wat dit is nie. I know not what it is not. |
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12th July 2018, 05:44 AM | #135 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Afrikaans is a Germanic language so that destroyed my Mediterranean theory ...
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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12th July 2018, 06:57 AM | #136 |
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Afrikaans is an exception in this regard.
"Dialectal Dutch, French and San have been suggested as possible origins for this trait." |
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12th July 2018, 09:55 AM | #137 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Interesting!
However, this seems to be a very complicated way of denying that it's a double negative:
Quote:
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/dann "Stupidity renders itself invisible by assuming very large proportions. Completely unreasonable claims are irrefutable. Ni-en-leh pointed out that a philosopher might get into trouble by claiming that two times two makes five, but he does not risk much by claiming that two times two makes shoe polish." B. Brecht "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." K. Marx |
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12th July 2018, 03:20 PM | #138 |
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There are also double negatives in Russian. I remember learning a few phrases years ago when I visited Russia, and when I tried to analyze the words I couldn’t understand why there were double negatives. It’s just the way the grammar is in Russian, apparently.
I also know examples of double negatives in both formal and informal Japanese. The adverb “amari” is a negative, but it can go with negatives such as “didn’t eat” - “I didn’t eat not much”. Also, in informal Japanese “zen zen” means “not at all” and “muri” means impossible. People will say “zen zen muri” which technically means “not at all impossible” but actually is used to mean “completely impossible” and language mavens can squawk all they want about how it is either a double negative or a redundancy. I think I did myself when I was first learning the language and I was not woke to the way language works and expected it to *have* to conform to a prescriptive textbook. When I asked Japanese speakers of the sentence was self-contradictory they would indulge me and say “ha ha yes, I see what you mean but that isn’t the meaning of the sentence.” Of course double negatives are and were very common in everyday English and in various dialects of English today. They are rarely any more “ambiguous” than most “standard” or “metaphorical” English which most language mavens use unthinkingly knowing that their meaning can be understood well enough. |
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13th July 2018, 01:15 AM | #139 |
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13th July 2018, 02:00 AM | #140 |
Illuminator
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I've never thought of that second 'nie' that way. I've only ever considered it as a kind of emphasis of the first one.
"Oral begin mans besef dat hulle nie fyn hoef te wees nie Dis nie aanvaarbaar om te huil nie Dis nie aanvaarbaar om te skeer nie En die enigste tyd toe ons nee se is as hulle vir ons vra of ons genoeg gehad het" |
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