The Coffee House

[sm4him]

I'm very excited today because I found out (but, SHHHH!! It's a secret!!) that a friend of mine who's pregnant is going to be induced tomorrow, so I'm about to be an honorary Aunt! This is my pastor's son and daughter-in-law; I've always been good friends with my pastor's family, beyond just a ministerial role, and I've become VERY good friends with his daughter-in-law. This is the couple who were pregnant about 18 months ago and lost the baby, very late in the pregnancy, and very suddenly and inexplicably. We were all just crushed--so the impending birth of their daughter is extra special. This will be the first (surviving) grandchild for my pastor and his wife.

I'll be heading up to the hospital tomorrow afternoon--they are trying to keep it under wraps because they don't want a church full of people there! But I'm special, and get invited--because of my relationship with the mom-to-be, and also because…I have a camera.

 

[Gary A.]

Teacher's edition wouldn't do much good anyway. When I do take questions from the book, I don't put them in the same order. Or even from the same quiz.

I give quizzes in my lower level writing class - usually about 4 per semester. I always give them a chance to retake any or all quizzes at the end of the semester. I tell them that it will be the same exact quiz, just with rearranged questions, so they can study their old quizzes but just don't bother memorizing the order of the answers because they will be different. Some students still failed the retake.

Frankly, I would let them take the quiz over and over again until they get 100%. It's not about the grade - it's about them learning something. If it takes them 5 times, it doesn't matter - it means they've learned the material on that quiz and some of the sentences might very well be burned into their brains. This is good. It gives them context and a reference point for the next time they are struggling with writing a sentence that requires that grammatical structure.

For example, I still remember this sentence from high school French: J'espere que je ne me suis pas casse la jambe! (Sorry, no accent marks easily available on my keyboard.) And it will always remind me that when using a reflexive verb in French, use the definite article, not the possessive pronoun (la jambe, not ma jambe.)

But then again, I'm a language geek

The only French I remember of late is "Je suis Charlie".

 

[pgriz]

Antidisestablishmentarianism.

So what does that combobulation of letters actually mean?

Opposition to not having (or disestablishing) a state-sponsored Church of England.

Oh. Silly of me not to have figured it out. Kinda like the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" idea. I have problems with double negatives and permutations thereof. Lacking sufficient mental wit I end up doing little decision diagrams to figure out what the options really are. But thank you, Leonore. Another item to add to my quiver of words that tend to obfuscate rather than clarify.

 

[Gary A.]

Does a double negative make a right?

 

[Gary A.]

BTW - Buenos Dias Coffee Hosers. It is 7:21 and 48F. It should hit 72F by the afternoon.

 

[sm4him]

Does a double negative make a right?

My favorite story about that (the short version):

A professor was explaining to his students about double negatives and that they actually ended up meaning a positive. "Not no way" really means there IS a way, etc.
Then he said, "But in no instance does a double positive create a negative."
At which point a student in the back spoke up and said, "Yeah, right."
(You have to hear this with the right inflection for it to work.)

 

[Gary A.]

Very good ... lol ... All this professor stuff reminds me of a Chemistry class. It was one of those large theatre type classrooms. This chem professor had these surprise "quizzes", as he called them, once or twice a week. After a few "quizzes" we were all getting pissed-off. So he hits us again with a "quizzie" and this wonderful little girl was the first to finish and walks down to the stage/front of the classroom to turn in her test and loudly announces that if these were his "quizzes she'd hate to see his testies". That ended the quizzes for the semester.

 

[Designer]

Doesn't this sentence contain a double negative?

Je ne parle pas français.

But in French, is it not correct?

 

[pgriz]

Ah yes, the exception that proves the rule. That's the problem with absolutes - hard to state it so an exception can't be figured out.

 

[pgriz]

Doesn't this sentence contain a double negative?

Je ne parle pas français.

But in French, is it not correct?

The "ne" and "pas" go together (a little like the slash commands in Html, with a start and end). In fact, if you skip the "pas" it is usually clear that you're an anglophone (or at least not a francophone).

 

[KenC]

Does a double negative make a right?

My favorite story about that (the short version):

A professor was explaining to his students about double negatives and that they actually ended up meaning a positive. "Not no way" really means there IS a way, etc.
Then he said, "But in no instance does a double positive create a negative."
At which point a student in the back spoke up and said, "Yeah, right."
(You have to hear this with the right inflection for it to work.)

In the NYC version of the story, the student says "yeah, yeah" (inflection critical as always).

 

[bribrius]

i should go shooting today. randomly go around and take photos. did that the other day for two hours. just because...

 

[Designer]

I don't intend to skip any important part of the sentence, (at least not on purpose) but when my grandson was learning French, he thought it contained a double negative, and because he had learned to not do that in English, he wondered why it was o.k. in French.

Is all.

 

[limr33 3]

But a double negative can make a positive. In my other silly thread I started last night, I wrote: a gorn is never not funny. (Two negatives) That means a gorn is always funny. (Positive. Also truth.)

 

[bribrius]

But a double negative can make a positive. In my other silly thread I started last night, I wrote: a gorn is never not funny. (Two negatives) That means a gorn is always funny. (Positive. Also truth.)

you guys are starting to give me a headache here. This is all way beyond me. i did understand Hemingway. i also did suck at grammar.