Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 09:03:33 -0400
From: Jesse T Sheidlower
Subject: Re: Friday humor

Danny Long wrote:

> A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. "In
> English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. In some
> languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a
> negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can
> form a negative."
>
> A voice from the back of the classroom piped up, "Yeah, right."

This is very often presented as a true story, with the back-
of-class voice said to be the philosopher Saul Kripke, among
others; often the punchline is "Yeah, yeah." I forget if there's
a definitive version, but it does seem as if it is a genuine
story, not just a joke.

Jesse Sheidlower