"In English," he explained, "a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative."
"However," the professor continued, "there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative."
A voice from the back of the room piped up. "Yeah, right."
Zeno Swijtink
02-02-2009, 09:55 PM
Actually, the voice in the back was Sidney Morgenbesser 's of Columbia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Morgenbesser) University ("Erudite and influential American linguistic philosopher with the analytical acuity of Spinoza and the blunt wit of Groucho Marx (https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article479591.ece)") who said: "Yeah, yeah ." This was during a lecture by Oxford linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin).
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b9/JLAustin.jpg/200px-JLAustin.jpg
John Austin