Anecdote Time - A Lecture about English

[Keith]

(Just for fun folks- honest!)

A LECTURE ABOUT ENGLISH

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English 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."

 

[BenL]

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

This actually happened. A few years ago, there was an obituary about
Sidney Morgenbesser who uttered the famous line "Yeah, yeah".

Remembering Sidney Morgenbesser

"The most celebrated Morgenbesser anecdote involved visiting Oxford philosopher J. L. Austin, who noted that it was peculiar that although there are many languages in which a double negative makes a positive, no example existed where two positives expressed a negative. In a dismissive voice, Morgenbesser replied from the audience, "Yeah, yeah…" "