The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #132499   Message #4173665
Posted By: MaJoC the Filk
02-Jun-23 - 10:33 AM
Thread Name: BS: Language Pet Peeves
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
OK, folks: here's a couple of curious facets of English as she is spoke that sort-of annoy me.

* If I ask someone "Are you feeling OK?" and they're not, the answer is "No". If instead I say "Are you not feeling OK?", logic suggests the answer would be "Yes", but it's understood that I'm asking "Are you feeling OK?" with the implication that I expect the answer to be "No".

* If I say "You're feeling OK, aren't you?" then neither "Yes" nor "No" is logically correct.

Happily, these two curiosities cancel out in practice in spoken English. They may well not appear in other languages; contributions, please.