Message-ID: <496C8482.3060503@davidnewall.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:39:38 +1030
From: David Newall <davidn@davidnewall.com>
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To: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
CC: Daolong Wang <ahlongxp@gmail.com>, David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>,
       bhutchings@solarflare.com, lizf@cn.fujitsu.com, qhfeng.kernel@gmail.com,
       netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] NET: fix wrong English expression in comments
References: <496a3c51.09876e0a.03fe.7e80@mx.google.com>	<496A9753.80802@cn.fujitsu.com>	<1231724358.2674.13.camel@hashbaz.i.decadent.org.uk>	<20090112.215320.197154233.davem@davemloft.net>	<dc84318c0901122216s77bae26eo2dd36c4a0ee35177@mail.gmail.com>	<496C53AF.3080901@davidnewall.com> <20090113090402.33d36725@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
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Alan Cox wrote:
>> "Don't add nothing," is not a colloquialism; it's just bad grammar.  The
>>     
>
> It's a matter of dialect. For historical reasons English emerged from a
> mix of languages and cultures (even within the UK). In some of the
> originating languages and areas a double negative is emphatic in others
> it negates the negation. Thus it is a bad idea when using globally - as
> nobody is quite sure what you mean.

There's an amusing story about a lecture, in which the professor was
saying that in many cultures, in many languages, a double negative
becomes a positive, but that nowhere did a double positive become a
negative. From the back of the class drifted a bored, "yeah, yeah!"
--
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