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Reminds me of a classic linguistics joke (I assume from a Tom Scott video given where I encounter linguistics the most):

A professor is lecturing on linguistics: "In English a double negative has a positive meaning. However, in some languages—such as Russian—a double negative still has a negative meaning. There isn't, however, a language in which a double positive holds a negative meaning."

A student in the back responds: "Yeah, right."




This is widely attributed to Sidney Morgenbesser (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Morgenbesser).


This reminds me of ruminations with a friend about the nuance of combined positive/negative affirmations. Eg “no yeah” used as an emphatic agreement in the positive, and “yeah no” an emphatic agreement in the negative.




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