You don’t miss people NOT being around. You miss them BEING around. You don’t miss NOT HAVING people around, you miss having them around.
And in case anyone’s wondering what prompted all this, there’s an arthritis drug commercial currently being run that exhorts listeners NOT to let their arthritis keep them FROM NOT doing this, and FROM NOT doing that, and FROM NOT doing about a dozen other vigorous activites, all preceded by the phrase from not. I don’t know why people who are otherwise articulate, and would never say, “I can’t get no satisfaction”, unless they are singing that song, will commit these grammatical faux pas.
And, since I don’t recall seeing this mentioned in the many grammar pittings we’ve had here over the years, I thought why not mention it now.
“and since I don’t recall not seeing this mentioned in the many grammar pittings we’ve had here over the years, I thought why not not mention it now”?
Just trying to help out.
Just a minute:
If I miss my ex not being around, that means I feel sad that my ex is around, right? So, if I my friend is not around and I miss him, should I say “I miss him being around.”? What if I just say, “I miss him.”?
If I understand you, in the first example you’re using the *miss…not construction, but it’s OK because you really mean your ex is there, and you don’t want your ex around.
Captain Amazing, your statement could be considered an actual double negative, but I’m assuming that you mean you agree with me. In which case there’s nothing wrong with the sentence.
Eh. Shakespeare used them. (Something like "No, I will not never do such a thing… etc.)
It originally meant, the more negatives you put in, the more negatively you meant the statement to be. There wasn’t any cancelling-out logic to it, until some brainiac decided to add rules to it. Probably the same idiot to added a b to the word doubt (originally dout) after seeing the Latin word dubitas.
No, you miss them when they go away. You cannot miss them if they don’t go away but even if they go away you can not miss them which is to say that even if they don’t not go away you can not miss them.
I don’t disagree with people who don’t talk like that but I disapprove of those who don’t disagree with people who don’t express themselves more clearly.
If it weren’t for psychoanalysis we would never be able to tell whether what we think we think is what we think we think we think or what we think we think we think we think.
Spectre: << You don’t miss NOT HAVING people around, you miss having them around. >>
Sailor: << No, you miss them when they go away. >>
I think this discussion misses the point. I mean, I threw a plate of spaghetti at my mother-in-law and I missed her, and she didn’t go away. Nor was she not around, she’s very around, she’s fat and shaped like an apple. And although I missed her, she’s not a miss, she’s been a missus for a lonnnnng time.
Reminds me of the comedian who came on stage looking sad and forlorn and told about how she had broken up with her boyfriend etc and she had written a short poem entitled “Sometimes I miss him” which she was now going to read to us. She pulls out a slip of paper and reads, slowly, very slowly
I wish I could remember who did it. very funny and well delivered.
I found online the words “produced a cup of something that tasted almost, but not entirely, unlike tea” are from Chapter 2 of a Mishmash of Douglas Adams fan-fiction and may have been lifted from Douglas Adams himself. Maybe someone can confirm or deny this.
