The Steel Guitar Forum

No, a vacuum is the absence of everything; what is the absence of nothing ?

Now I've lost the meaning of the Vacuum Of Space...Isn't space something ?? Off Topic ????

Space is just the area between and around things. The latest scientific thinking is that a complete vacuum hardly ever occurs. Space is full of various types of dust, not to mention dark matter, which has never been seen but which consists of a large proportion of our universe.

(I say our universe because there could be any number of universes completely separate from ours, which we will never know about.)

Sometime in the next few hours, perhaps by morning, we wil hit 1,777,777 articles posted.

Then it's on to two million and I hope to be there if NOTHING happens to me...

Paul Graupp wrote:Sometime in the next few hours, perhaps by morning, we will hit 1,777,777 articles posted.

When we hit that "magic" number, what do you think will happen?

Nothing

Exactly !! That is what this is all about...NOTHING !! Never seen so much of it !! As Peggy Lee once sang...

Is That All There Is ?

> xyzzy
> nothing happens
>

b0b wrote:

Paul Graupp wrote:Sometime in the next few hours, perhaps by morning, we will hit 1,777,777 articles posted.

When we hit that "magic" number, what do you think will happen?

Maybe when we hit 77,777,777 articles something will happen ...b0b will run out of disk space.

The member who posts the 2,000,000th post should get a $5000 prize.
...unless B0b says, "NOTHING doing".

Damm! read some of Alans last posts and I thought he was onto somnething - then I realised - Nope - NOTHING.

If two negatives make a positive and I say I never saw nothing...does that mean I saw something?

Students of grammar have been discussing this point for centuries. People have always used multiple negatives in English, just as they do in other languages, but during the 17th century the Education movement was pushing scientific logic and using it as it related to language, making two negatives make a positive.

For instance, "I can't get no satisfaction" must be the opposite of "I can get no satisfaction".

There are a lot of English professors nowadays suggesting that double negatives are etymologically historically acceptable.

One of the eternal problems, of course is the word none. It comes from not one or ne one, which means it must be singular. So you cannot say "None of our aircraft are missing," you have to say "None of our aircraft is missing."

Turning to your statement, "I never saw nothing" logically means "At no time did I see nothing", which by inference means that at all times you were seeing something, which is the opposite of what you intended to convey.

Another problem is negative questions. To avoid confusion you should never ask negative questions. For instance, "Didn't you buy the guitar ?" could be answered by "Yes." That means, "Yes, I did not buy the guitar." The French have an answer to that problem; they have two words for yes, "Oui" and "Si". "Si" is used to answer a negative question to the effect that what was asked was incorrect. Asked the above question, "Oui" would mean "Yes, I didn't buy it," whereas "Si" would mean "Yes, I did buy it."

And I dain't noways never add nothing to the subject, nohow.

One of the eternal problems, of course is the word none. It comes from not one or ne one, which means it must be singular. So you cannot say "None of our aircraft are missing," you have to say "None of our aircraft is missing."

I disagree. If "one" is singular, how can "not one" also be singular? "None of our aircraft are missing" is correct (unless, of course, exactly one aircraft is missing).

So if exactly one aircraft are missing would it be correct or incorrect to say One of our aircraft are missing ??

Not really, no.

Two aircraft are not one aircraft, so I maintain that no aircraft are similarly not one aircraft.

None are not one.

This commingling of the English language and mathematics is getting "out of hand".
Sometimes mathematics is plain mathematics and sometimes English is just a muffin.
But, an English muffin is not really a muffin (but a biscuit), not English, and may or may not contain nooks and crannies.

...point being:
A sentence may be a group of words arranged in such a manner as to convey an absolute thought, of which there is no question of its meaning; or it may make an implication which is open to interpretation __
the connotation of which may be different for different groups or cultures.
Common use may dictate its meaning to that group.
My use of the metaphor "out of hand" in my first sentence is somewhat similar.

Many times a double negative expresses a thought of which an entire nation will have no doubt about its meaning.

And NOTHING has been done about all of this.

b0b wrote:

One of the eternal problems, of course is the word none. It comes from not one or ne one, which means it must be singular. So you cannot say "None of our aircraft are missing," you have to say "None of our aircraft is missing."

I disagree. If "one" is singular, how can "not one" also be singular? "None of our aircraft are missing" is correct (unless, of course, exactly one aircraft is missing).

During the war, someone wrote to the BBC after a newscaster reported, "None of our aircraft is missing", saying it should be "...are missing", and the BBC replied that the sentence was correct in that you would say "Not one of our aircraft is missing." This set off a debate amongst English professors which has been ongoing ever since. The majority maintains* that it is singular, while there are those who say that "none" is a word in itself, and can be both singular and plural.

*maintains, not maintain, because the subject of the verb is "the majority", which is a singular noun referring to multiple items.

Of course, all this says nothing about nothing, but saying nothing about this particular topic is in line with the topic itself.

I never knew so much about nothing in all my life!

I have nothing to say about the previous post.

Roll on the century.

Artwork or nothing ?

I was trying to make a point but in the effort, forgot what it was...left me with NOTHING !!