For example, “Love to hate and hate to love.” Love is positive, hate is negative. In multiplication, positive one times negative one results in negative one. When you say, “I love to hate,” you are saying a negative statement. Multiplication is also reversible, meaning negative one times positive one still results in negative one. In the same way, you can say “I hate to love.” The meaning is still negative.
Now, in order for this to work, the two operands — love and hate — must be exact opposites (like -1 and +1 are 100% opposites, you won’t get negative one if you multiply by zero). Some other examples include “I’m happy to be sad / I’m sad to be happy,” “Never say yes / Always say no.” What are some other examples?
Another rule to keep in mind is that two negatives (negative adverbs) make a positive (the outcome of the sentence means the same thing as if there were no negatives). They cancel each other out. For example, “I didn’t never do it” means the same thing as “I did it,” because the two negatives make a positive (as in multiplication).
Dude, don’t you have better things to be doing? Sometimes you really scare me. =P
May 25th, 2005 at 7:53 pm
Actually, I wrote a draft for this entry about a month ago. Every time I get an idea to blog, I write a bit and save it as a draft. This way, I am equipped with material when I have nothing to write about, assuring at least one blog entry on a daily basis. (Some drafts never made it to the publishing stage, though.) Something really cool is I don’t even have to be here a lot of the time, because I can setup my blog to automatically post entries even when I’m not around. :)
May 25th, 2005 at 10:26 pm
Beware the Stinging Mantra Ray, Bob, Jona, CarolW.
I like to play with words the way you like to play with mathematics, Jona. I keep running into Mantras that seem not to work very well (well, that’s common in the world of dogs).
Sometimes playing really, really silly games produces amazing and wonderful ideas; right? I think so.
HTML is allowed? I can’t! Waaah! (not up to it now)
Wed, 25 May 2005 20:36:05 PDT
Carol W
May 25th, 2005 at 10:35 pm
Random thought eh Jona? Worrying….
May 26th, 2005 at 7:58 am
Actually, “I never did nothing!” means the same thing as, “I didn’t do anything!” Just ask any teenager. ;)
Perhaps I should also point out that the above two sentences are prounounced as, “I never did nuffing!” and, “I didn’t do anyfink!”
Stick that in your pipe and give it to an adult to smoke it because you’re under age and smoking is bad for your health.
May 26th, 2005 at 11:06 am
I beg to differ, if you are never doing nothing, you are always doing something.
May 26th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Doesn’t stop people from saying it.
May 26th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
okee. this is my first post, and of course it is me being a big huge nerd. but point is that in some languages, the more negatives you use, the more you emphasize the negativity of the statement. it wouldn’t matter if there were an even number of negatives or an odd. in which case, it’s simply more of an addition than a multiplication… in some dialects of english that is the case, too. and though “i didn’t never do nothing” isn’t grammatically pretty, the point is still obvious. i mean, why would anyone say something technically incorrect if it wasn’t still essentially linguistically correct, right? man… i’m a nerd.
May 27th, 2005 at 9:14 pm
Jes, you’re exactly right. I’m not an expert in languages, but in speech a double-negative, though technically improper, intensifies the meaning of a statement. I’m obviously coming from a technical standpoint, not exactly a practical one, so we’re really both right in different point-of-views.
May 28th, 2005 at 3:40 am
Haha u guys are hillarious… in a somewhat scary way… yes… I will have to agree with Robert… haha
June 12th, 2005 at 12:01 pm