When people from the Bay Area hear Eric Burdon sing about “warm San Franciscan nights,” they wonder if he’d ever even visited. No such thing!
Wouldn’t it be odd if people referred to Barack Obama as the President of Kentucky?
We all know that foreigners routinely refer to her as the Queen of England, but it is still incorrect and does jar slightly to British ears.
Big Bang Theory theme:
We build the Wall (we built the Pyramids)
They don’t say it’s in chronological order, but we built the pyramids before the wall. Unless you’re talking about the Aztec pyramids.
Or the walls of Jericho (or, say, Cätal Höyuk).
But they say wall, not walls
It’s not incorrect, she IS Queen of England. But she has chosen not to make this one of her “styles”, instead preferring Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith
And as everybody knows, there isn’t anybody in the NYC area who’s not from NYC.
You’re making me labour this point more than I wanted – I am not suggesting that Jack White needs to rewrite the lyrics of Seven Nation Army or anything – but the crowns of England and Scotland were merged in the Act of Union in 1707. Since then there have been kings and queens of the United Kingdom, but not of England or Scotland per se. There is no political entity “England” for her to be queen of. No English government, no England-only jurisdiction.
I don’t want to give the impression that this is something British people actually get upset about. It’s just a little factual nitpick. This thread is full of them.
Indian Sunset - Elton John - Geronimo was not “laying down his weapons when they filled him full of lead.” He died of complications from pneumonia at age 80. To be fair, the narrator attributes the news to passing renegades and we all know they can’t be trusted.
Snoopy vs the Red Baron - The Royal Guardsmen - Snoopy didn’t shoot down the Red Baron. He wasn’t even there.
He did too! It was even in the newspaper!
Pink Floyd - “We don’t need no education”
It’s “We don’t need ANY education”, and clearly, you do
The whole “double negative = a positive” is not actually part of English grammar. No one, after hearing that line, misunderstands what is being said.
In Eminem’s “Stan,” he alludes to the story of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.”
You know this song by Phil Collins
"In the Air Tonight’
About that guy who could have saved
That other guy from drowning?
But didn’t, and Phil saw it all
Then at his show he found him?
It’s a well-known story, but it isn’t true.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true, it only matters if Stan thinks it’s true.
I’d be careful about making such wild claims. You could set sued by a World Famous Attorney.
Where in that song did you hear that Snoopy shot down the Red Baron. IIRC the verse goes
"but the Baron shot him down
Curses foiled again. "
Anyhow you forgot to mention that doghouses don’t fly.
Final verse:
Also, dogs can’t talk.
I thought it was “we built a wall” I’m sure there was at least one wall before a pyramid.
So, if a double negative is not a positive then the sentence “No one, after hearing that line, misunderstands what is being said” means the same as “No one, after hearing that line, understands what is being said”? We can just disregard the second and subsequent negatives in a sentence without changing its meaning?
Obviously, not every instance of multiple negatives in the same sentence intensify the negation. It only works in certain cases, in sentences that are constructed in very specific ways, and it does so very consistently. Which is to say that double negation (negative concord) follows rules, i.e., it’s part of English grammar. Portugese, Spanish and French all have it too. German doesn’t and Latin didn’t, but Old English and Middle English both did, and the notion that modern English doesn’t and using it is wrong, dammit, is a purely imaginary one.
(Edit: Think about it: Isn’t it strange that a usage that is supposed to be “wrong” seems to show up repeatedly in just about every bleedin’ so-called non-standard dialect of English as soon as you step away from the “standard”, as well as in lots of people’s everyday speech as soon as the Language Police isn’t looking?)