On Tue, Nov 11, 2003 at 03:02:14PM -0500, Paolo Vanni M. Ve?egas wrote: > That is: > Q. "Will a 'kill -9 <pid>' do?" > A. "Yes. It will do." > > Q. "Will a 'kill -9 <pid>' not do?" (logical equivalent of the original > question) > A. "Yes. It will not do."
My wife and I discuss this every couple of months. In standard-usage American English, the question is always answered in the form that it was asked. So, on the second one, it was asked in the negative, and to agree with the question, you answer in the negative all around, i.e. "No, it will not do." The confusion arises because if you disagree with the question, you say "Yes", i.e. "Yes, it will do." To clear the ambiguity, just drop it and answer the question with a statement :) I would say to not use the negative question form, but there's a reason we use it. We generally ask the question in the form that represents what we believe to be the case. In the positive form above, the inquisitor is making it clear that he doesn't know the answer. With the negative form, the inquisitor is saying "I believe that a 'kill -9' will work, is this the case?" The alternate form of the negative here is to negate the main verb "will": Q. Won't a 'kill -9 <pid>' do? A. No, it won't do. A. Yes, it will do. Michael -- Michael Darrin Chaney [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.michaelchaney.com/ -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
