A friend of mine was recently working with under-privileged "problem" kids, he was hired to teach them how to do scratching
s DJ style and to show them some breakdancing
. Kind of a method of communicating with them on their own level type thing.
He was setting up his bits and pieces whilst the social worker assigned to the group was talking to the assembled 9 and 10 year old trouble makers. As he was putting the wires together he overheard the lecture that was taking place.
"Now kids, I want to talk to you a bit about positive and negative and how we can put them together in language.
Often you will hear positive and negative put together to make something else, we can use two negatives to make a positive, such as 'I don't dislike you' meaning 'I like you'.
You might also hear a negative and a postive mixed together to make a positive, such as 'I don't hate you' meaning again 'I like you'.
Or a negative and a positive could be mixed to make a negative, as in 'I don't like you'.
But, one of the funny things in life is that you will never hear two positives put together to make a negative, that just doesn't happen"
And from the back of the hall came a wee voice saying "Aye, right!"
For those of you who don't know, "Aye, right!" is the Scottish equivalent of the sarcastic "Oh yes, that will be right!" and is indeed two positives making a negative.