Re:Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
by jesserosenthal on Tuesday October 22, 2013 @09:57PM
(#6596279)
Pleasingly ambiguous phrasing. The first two times I read it, I got that this was the smartest anyone had ever looked (no one has ever looked smarter). Apologies for going off-topic, but I hadn't come across this particular cramp in the language before.
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Re:Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
by notaddicted on Tuesday October 22, 2013 @10:52PM
(#6596508)
I doubt anyone would disagree that triple negatives aren't easy to parse.
It's not the triple negative that is the culprit here though. It's the inherent ambiguity in a phrase such as "never been better", which could be either a negative or positive statement. I'm sure there's a name for that construct?
Re:Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
by Dylan16807 on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @08:10AM
(#6598212)
I think tptacek's sentence would need a 'than' to have a valid reading as a positive statement. 'never been better' is ambiguous by itself, but by the time you put it into a sentence it may or may not be ambiguous.
So my answer is mu.
If that sentence hadn't mentioned triple negatives, I don't think I would have noticed anything abnormal about it.
Now I'm curious how natural language parsers handle triple negatives.
Re:Ask HN: Why the Microsoft hate?
by JacobAldridge on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @01:43AM
(#6597117)
You'll be pleased to know that they don't not do them unwell.