It's generally good advice in clear writing to avoid negatives, especially double ones. Rather than say "It's not impossible that ..." say "it's possible that ...".

I've noticed that many people now say or write that it's "impossible to underestimate the importance of" something or other, meaning (against logic) that it's important.

My favourite quote in this area come from a BBC correspondent in Washington, who, on being asked about some lobby group or other, said:

quote:

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But they are not the ones in power, which is not to say that they are not
without influence ... because they are.

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I like to think I could see the mounting panic in his eyes as the sentence got ever more out of control!

Paul.

PS: I also hate the way that every record has become a track record. My newspaper this morning says (about a newly-promoted Cabinet minister, the first black woman to hold such a post):

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Officials said she had been promoted because she had a "first rate" track record as a junior Foreign Office minister.

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I'm not quite sure why they put first rate in quotes, either. And shouldn't it be hyphenated?

PPS: Also why have questions become question-marks? As in "there is a question-mark over his future".

Shall I stop now?

I like your mind, Paul! As I have said on this board before, so many questions; so little time.

As for the double negatives, I hate them too. I find myself spending all my time trying to figure out what the person is saying, rather than to understand what is being said. I have seen many test questions that similarly test the way students take a test, rather than their knowledge.

For example: All of the following are true except:
A. Cows are usually not green

Now, you are so concerned with the "except" and the "not" that your knowledge base really isn't being tested.

I'll have to take issue with you there, because it is true that cows are not usually green.

Have you been to Wisconsin? ( ) Just kidding!

Bear, that was an example of a multiple choice question. I did not continue with the B., C., or D. choices. And, you are correct, most cows are not green. Yet, with genetics, who knows about the future....

I never saw a purple cow ...

quote:

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Originally posted by Hic et ubique:
I never saw a purple cow ...

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But have you seen a chicken without feathers?

quote:

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Originally posted by Morgan:
But have you seen a chicken without feathers?

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Yes, the supermarket is full of them!

Nearly 40 years ago one of my college professors (genetics prof.?) said that featherless chickens had been produced, but they were economically impractical because it cost too mush to heat them. Last year an Israeli geneticist, Avigdor Cahaner produced a featherless chicken that he feels will be a boon for farmers -- in warm climates.

Tinman

PPS: Also why have questions become question-marks? As in "there is a
question-mark over his future".
___________________________________________
Asked of the pre-teen girl, "Is there a period in her future?" Then there was the old man with the shunted bowel who had a colon in his past.

quote:

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Originally posted by Morgan:
But have you seen a chicken without feathers?

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Believe it or not, one side of a chicken has more feathers than the other. Can you tell which one and why?

And also, regarding "The Purple Cow," did you know that the author Gelett Burgess (NOT Ogden Nash as is so often commonly believed) despised that little bit of doggerel? He wrote many other pieces, including the famous (although less so nowadays, sadly) "Goops and How to Be Them" and related children's books but it was

I've never seen a purple cow.
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one.

that caught everyone's attention. He was so completely identified by this piece and praised for it well out of proportion for what he thought it deserved that just two years later he wrote the rejoinder:

Ah, yes, I wrote "The Purple Cow."
I'm sorry now I wrote it.
But I can tell you anyhow
I'll kill you if you quote it!


Call me a lowbrow but I think "The Purple Cow" just might be the world's most nearly perfect poem!

How about the outside being the more feathery of the two?

Richard English

Workers in down-filled garment factories and down-filled sleeping-bag factories are running the risk of becoming paralyzed ....... from the waste down.

There is nothing wrong with saying it is not unlikely. Dramatic under-statement is part of the writer's weaponry. 'It is not unlikely that I am right' is a far less controversial and agressive way of saying 'I am right'.

A double negative is not the same as an affirmative, actually, except in a purely two-valued system where everything is either yes or no. But if you allow the possibility of yes, no, and undecided (for example) then a positive is a Yes but a double-negative is a Yes-or-perhaps-a-maybe. Not the same thing at all, really...

But some constructions are inherently two-valued, of course. "Not impossible" is the same as "possible".

And I agree with Graham about litotes; my point though is that double negatives do not aid clarity, and thus if one's aim is to be clear, they should be used with care. (Not avoided altogether, necessarily, but carefully considered.)

quote:

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Originally posted by Richard English:
How about the outside being the more feathery of the two?

Richard English

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Well done, R.E. An oldie but a goodie. (The riddle, I mean. Not you. And that's not to say that I think you're a baddie... or that, uh... Oh, never mind.)

Years ago I sprung this one on my younger sister who wracked her brain for nearly an hour trying to figure out which side of a chicken had more feathers. Upon hearing the answer, she immediately fell in love with the whole concept and immediately rushed off to pull it on our mother breathlessly asking her "Which side of a chicken has more feathers - the inside or the outside?"

We laughed for a week.