Can a Double Positive Form a Negative? Linguistic Humor

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 9:24AM
Jinxi Boo in Did You Know, Etymology, Fun Facts, double negative, double positive, humor, joke, language, linguistics, word, words

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. "In English," he said, "A double negative forms a positive.  In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative.  However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."

A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."

Article originally appeared on Jinxi Boo (http://www.jinxiboo.com/).