Thread: Grammatical Anomaly

The next time someone says, "I ain't got nothing" ask them,"Well then, what do you have ?" They will look at you in bewilderment.

I think the phrase has a rhetorical nature. It's the same if someone was speaking and said "It's Monday, is it not?"
He's not asking if it's Monday, he knows it's Monday. He's looking for a confirmation.
In fact, I don't think the phrase has proper context being used to question the day of the week.

Originally Posted by WongKonPow

I think the phrase has a rhetorical nature. It's the same if someone was speaking and said "It's Monday, is it not?"
He's not asking if it's Monday, he knows it's Monday. He's looking for a confirmation.
In fact, I don't think the phrase has proper context being used to question the day of the week.

Not proper context except in the case of Mondays. Especially first thing on a Monday morning, don't you think*?





*"don't you think?" is another example of a similar negatively phrased question...

ANOMOLY ???

It's an anomaly, isn't it? Just think about that one for a while!

Originally Posted by Seraphim

"Is not it true, today is Monday?" How do you answer that one???

You answer it 'yes' for the affirmative or 'no' for the negative. It's more like saying, 'is it Monday, yes or no'?

Originally Posted by xman

You answer it 'yes' for the affirmative or 'no' for the negative. It's more like saying, 'is it Monday, yes or no'?

But the question is not "is it Monday, yes or no?" the question remains "is not it Monday? Yes or no"

I know in common parlance it is the same thing, as you describe, but when you break it down to what is actually being said, it is not so clear.

Originally Posted by Navaja

ANOMOLY ???

Well you got me on that.
I guess I don't spell to good sometimes...

The expected response is not the grammatically corrent one. True, most people would answer, "It is Monday, is it not?" with a "Yes" if it were Monday, technically meaning, "True, it is not Monday." But since everyone understands what's meant by it, I would call it an idiom. We have many of these phrase which we all understand and yet they defy grammatical analysis. Another example is, "I could care less." This really means,"I do care."

When you say, "I'm going over Joe's house". What are you really saying? Even if you add to what does it mean?

Or how about one of the most famous nonexistent words out there-irregardless. What's with that word? Why do people use it all the time?