L@@K! L@@K! L@@K!

Ray Haddad wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Not me, I looked because I wanted to.

Puckdropper

Yeah. Ok. We'll go with that.

-- Ray

I didn't look! Honest!

"Mark Mathu" wrote in news:greg1t$6ou$1 @news.motzarella.org:

Oh yeah, what didn't you see?

Puckdropper

Ray Haddad wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

You forgot: "Now here's a quarter. Go play and leave Grandpa and me alone."

Puckdropper

I didn't see nothing!

On 4/6/2009 8:48 PM Mark Mathu spake thus:

That's a double negative. It ain't grammatically correct.

A double negative is a positive surely?

Krypsis

If I tole ya once, I tole ya a thousand times, my name ain't Shirley.

Grammar rules are not logic rules. The double negative = positive is true in some contexts, and not true in others. Historically, double negatives mean emphatic negative. The strictures on that usage were invented by a 17th century school teacher who had an imperfect grasp of Latin grammar, and no grasp of English grammar. OTOH negative particle plus negative prefix == positive.(b)

(a) "No, that's not so." "I didn't see nothin'." "Give him no nevermind." Plus lots of examples in Shakespeare. Look 'em up. ;-) Etc.

(b) "It is not uncommon for people to mistake usage rules for grammar rules, but not the inverse."

Kapeesh?

wolf k.

And, I might add, spelling rules are worse than grammer rules.

Growing up in New Orleans makes it even more difficult since we have several variations on language such as American English, French English, Spanish English, African English, Native American English and so on. Then, add to that, French English has several variations of it's own such as Colonial French-English, Creole French- English and Acadian ( or Cajun) French-English.

Then we can have a discussion on why so many people who settled on the "German Coast" of the Mississippi River above New Orleans all have French names because the no one could translate. When a German was asked what his name meant, he pointed to a tree branch and thus his name became LaBranche.

Funny to hear German spoken with a French accent.