Posted by PeterMcC on 01/22/15 11:44

Davémon" <"davémon wrote in
<tihz3xfjjhds.ob1xc05r27oq.dlg@40tude.net>

> PeterMcC arranged shapes to form:
>
>> Davémon" <"davémon wrote in
>> <55yge2pfd8n5$.w18635w13l1c.dlg@40tude.net>
>>
>>> Toby Inkster arranged shapes to form:
>>>
>>>> Davémon wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Lists with no items? That doesn't make any sense to me at all!
>>>>
>>>> The mathematical equivalent for the UL element would be what is
>>>> called a "set".
>>>>
>>>> A set is a group of numbers/shapes/letters/vectors/whatever. Some
>>>> examples are the set of all positive integers, the set of letters
>>>> that directly follow vowels in the alphabet, and the set of all
>>>> people called Kevin.
>>>>
>>>> The set is an abstract concept, and can be dealt with
>>>> mathematically, in many cases without worrying about how many (if
>>>> any) elements it contains.
>>>
>>> However, HTML is a language, and I don't think Language and
>>> Mathematics are directly comparable.
>>
>> In lots of ways, they are.
>>
>>> For example, in maths, two negatives make a positive, wheras in
>>> language (English at least) two negatives are just emphatically
>>> negative. "I don't know nothing about it".
>>
>> That's a double negative - it means the positive: if I don't know
>> *nothing* about it then I do know *something* about it.
>
> Among the people who use the phrase, double negatives of that kind are
> simply emphatic, and it is /always/ understood and used as such.

/Always/ might be a bit difficult to maintain, though I'd be unreasonable to
not allow a little hyperbolic licence :)

I agree with you entirely about usage, there are countless utterances whose
understood meaning is not that which is literally signified by the words and
syntax used.

We see poorly structured maths, HTML, Perl, etc. that is understood by those
who produced it - and those who look at it also understand what the writer
intended to convey.

The syntax and logic of the declarative "I don't know nothing" is, I think,
clear in its literal sense.

Then, what do I know?

;)

--
PeterMcC
If you feel that any of the above is incorrect,
inappropriate or offensive in any way,
please ignore it and accept my apologies.

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