On Tuesday 11 November 2003 11:11 am, Daniel O. Escasa wrote:
> Sabi ni Paolo Vanni noong Wed, 2003-11-12, 04:02:
> > Q. "Will a 'kill -9 <pid>' not do?" (logical equivalent of the original
> > question)
> > A. "Yes. It will not do."
>
> >> The editor in me cries out to protest the second construct: "Yes. It
> will not do" is incorrect. The proper construct is "No, it will not do."
Given the case "it will not do":
it will not do == true (1)
not(it will not do) == not(true)
=> not(not(it will do) == not(true)
Cancelling the double negatives in the case at the left, we get
it will do == not(true) == false (2)
So asking "will it do?", which is a query as to whether or not the case that
"it will do" is true, merits false (from (2)), so "no".
Similarly, "won't it do" and "will it not do?", which ask if the case that "it
will not do" is true, get true (from (1)), ergo I answer "yes". Appending "it
will not do" to that reply is only affirming the correct case for purposes of
clarity on the part of the human receiver (though that does seem rather
redundant and inefficient).
*shrugs*
I grok code. Between English and logic, the latter gets higher priority. :)
Human languages tend to be littered with ambiguity.
--
Paolo Vanni M. Ve�egas
Ateneo Cervini-Eliazo Networks (ACENT)
III BSCS, Ateneo de Manila University
Emacs definition of the day: Emacs May Allow Customised Screwups
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