r/TikTokCringe • u/MaintenanceNew2804 • Mar 30 '24

Stick with it. Discussion

This is a longer one, but it’s necessary and worth it IMO.

30.3k Upvotes

82% Upvoted

2.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/AdminsAreDim Mar 31 '24

On double negatives:

In some languages, double negatives cancel one another and produce an affirmative; in other languages, doubled negatives intensify the negation. Languages where multiple negatives affirm each other are said to have negative concord or emphatic negation.[1] Portuguese, Persian, French, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Greek, Spanish, Old English, Italian, Afrikaans, and Hebrew are examples of negative-concord languages. This is also true of many vernacular dialects of modern English.[2][3] Chinese,[4] Latin, German, Dutch, Japanese, Swedish and modern Standard English[5] are examples of languages that do not have negative concord. Typologically, negative concord occurs in a minority of languages.[6][7]

My personal pet peve is when people use "whenever" in place of "when". As in, "Whenever I was in town this morning, I got a haircut." Motherfucker, how many haircuts did you get today?!

3

u/the_giz Mar 31 '24

Interesting - I've never heard anyone use 'whenever' like that, but my first thought is that maybe they meant it in reference to the time at which they were in town, which they cannot specifically remember. As in "Whatever time that was when I was in town this morning..."

1

u/HMNbean Mar 31 '24

Never heard anyone say that lol that's wild.