Let me know what you would have checked in the situation below:

I sent out an electronic survey to our membership, which includes full members and associate members (those from other countries). Here was the question:

Not intended for Associate Members
_Yes
_No

What would you have clicked if you DID want Associate members to answer the survey? I clicked NO because the stem said "NOT" intended for associate members. To me, "Yes" would have meant it is not intended for them. When the survey was sent to me, it said on the bottom: "This survey is not intended for associate members."

Was I being too literal? I do, from time to time, have that problem.

No you weren't. You were answering a question with a built-in ambiguity to the best of your ability. I honestly have no idea of the way to answer the question because I'd have to somehow second guess the intention of the person who wrote it.

It's an example of what Language Log calls over negation and it causes a lot of problems. It would have been so much simpler and clearer to write

Intended for Associate Members
_Yes
_No

which would be very simple and clear.

Another very common problem occurs with such phrases as

"You cannot fail to miss the significance of..."

If you fail to miss something then you see it.

If you cannot fail to miss it then you cannot see it.

The trouble is that most people faced with these multiple negations don't process them properly. What was intended, what was logically written and what was understood don't necessarily have any connection.

There's heaps of stuff kicking around on Language Log about it. Search for "over-negation".

And there's also a lot about things like

"Cannot be under/overestimated" which are probably used with the wrong implication as often as they are with the right implication.

I agree with you, Kalleh, but as Bob said, it's confusing.

I agree with Kalleh as well, and I don't think the question is ambiguous - it looks as though something went wrong somewhere. I agree, however, that it would have been better to avoid that wording and use the one suggested by Bob.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
Another very common problem occurs with such phrases as

"You cannot fail to miss the significance of..."

If you fail to miss something then you see it.

If you cannot fail to miss it then you cannot see it.

Another one I sometimes hear is "I miss not seeing him" for "I miss seeing him".

quote:

Originally posted by Guy Barry:
I agree with Kalleh as well, and I don't think the question is ambiguous - it looks as though something went wrong somewhere. I agree, however, that it would have been better to avoid that wording and use the one suggested by Bob.

The ambiguity comes from the fact that in my head I'm about ninety percent certain that the results will have been collated as if the wording had been as I suggested and not as it actually is. Kalleh's more literal (and logical) interpretation will almost certainly have been wrongly counted. But there is the possibility that for devious reasons unknown to me the question is meant as written, though I'd bet money on it being meant to say, and interpreted as, the exact opposite of what it actually says.

I saw it as a double negative, as it is, but I thought perhaps the people writing the question (IT people) might not. Thus, I hesitated on how to answer it. While I chose the linguistically correct answer, it was wrong and therefore was not sent out to our associate members.

As a follow-up, I had let them know I thought the question was confusing and suggested this change:

Intended for associate members
_ Yes
_ No

Here was the response: "I haven't seen anybody else having issues with this field."

This of course could be because the "anybody elses" didn't know or they didn't care.

So nobody had problems?
How can they possibly know that?

The only way they could evidence it would be to re-poll everyone with the new wording. If it's true that no one was confused then everyone should give exactly the opposite answer to the one they gave before. I'm absolutely certain that wouldn't be the case. In fact I'd hazard a guess that most people would give exactly the same answer as before purely because the question was originally badly phrased.

Negative questions are always prone to possible misinterpretation and should be avoided as far possible.

Don't you disagree with me?

I couldn't fail to disagree with you more.

quote:

So nobody had problems?
How can they possibly know that?

My point, exactly. I was surprised by that answer because it would be an easy change, and we do want to please our customers.