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Date: | Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:56:25 -0500 |
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A friend sent me the following example of a 'pet peeve':
"All people are not Republicans" used to mean that there are no Republicans,
period. When I hear this now, though, after a brief celebration, I realize
that the speaker meant "not all people are Republicans". Sad, but true to
the times.
It took me awhile to hear his preferred interpretation of the sentence. Why do we jump the negation from "Republicans" to "all"? That is, we seem to be doing something like taking an existential statement like
There are no people who are Republicans.
There are not people who are Republicans.
And turning it into
There are people who are not Republicans.
Why?
Dr. Seth Katz
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Bradley University
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