December 06, 2004

• Richard Gere's remark was good. Boris Johnson's just seems to say, "I must agree".
• Nobody said anything unusual for two years in the nineties?
• "I could not (fail to disagree) with you less" → "I could not agree with you less" = "I agree with you as little as possible" → "I nearly disagree with you". 'Fail to disagree' was perhaps an unnecessary periphrasis, but I find the sentence amply transparent otherwise.
• Now, the longest sentence ever really is heinous, especially as it says nothing more profound than "If ya don' keep up yer side of th' deal, we gon' getcha!" A pox on legalese!
• Hmm, I just realised that there's another distinct way to parse it; "I could not (fail to (disagree with you) less)" = "I could not ((disagree with you) more or (disagree with you) the same)" = "(I could not (disagree with you) more) and (I could not (disagree with you) the same)" = "(I disagree with you as much as possible) and ((I could disagree with you more) or (I could disagree with you less))". If it is to be a satisfiable proposition, then there is only one way to resolve the right conjunct, giving: "(I disagree with you as much as possible) and (I could disagree with you less)". Thus the right conjunct is seen as superfluous, leaving just the plain assertion: "I disagree with you as much as possible". It's likely that this is what Boris Johnson meant to say.
• Superb work there by Boris. It's not just the four negative elements within a nine-word sentence, it's the ambiguity of both the "diasgree with you less" part (which is not the precise opposite of "agree with you more"), and the "I couldn't do X/I could do X more/less" formulation. (I could not fail to) (disagree with you) (less) = My agreement is total (I could not) (fail to disagree with you) (less) = My non-agreement is total (I could not fail to) (disagree with you less) = My ambivalence is overwhelming I think he meant he agreed. But I'm still unsure.
• hmmm...is it really periphrasis? It seems more like litotes to me if you're taking "fail to disagree" as a double-negative way of saying "agree". I parsed it this way: "I could not disagree with you less" would basically mean "I agree with you," but by adding fail before disagree, he seems to suggest that he wouldn't fail to disagree less, meaning he would agree.
• fuyugare: forgive my ignorance of what is apparently some form of logical argumentation, but is what he said a proposition?
• is it really periphrasis I'm not sure, but a litotes has to be an understatement, so if you're right then 'fail to disagree' means 'agree a lot', which clouds it up even more. forgive my ignorance of what is apparently some form of logical argumentation, but is what he said a proposition? Uh, it's 'logical argumentation' in the most superficial sense in that it uses de Morgan's laws and classical resolution (in the style of Robinson). Mostly it is wankery. In logic, well-formed expressions that can be given a truth value are called propositions. Thus Mr. Johnson's statement is a proposition insofar as one can judge it to be 'correct' ("he's right, he really cannot fail to disagree less") or 'incorrect' ("actually, here's one way in which he can successfully fail to disagree less").
• fuyugare: I think litotes can also be an affirmation of something by the denial of its opposite, as with "agree" being equivalent to "fail to disagree", which I thought you used in your first parsing.
• Who's on First? It is unknown what known or unknown forces are at work here but this actually makes sense to me: 2003: United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for comments in a press briefing. 'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns
• Actually, I suspect Boris was joking...
• Bullshit Internet Bullshit
• I think litotes can also be an affirmation of something by the denial of its opposite Yes, yes, but it has to be an understatement. If 'fail to disagree' is a litotes, then its meaning is not simply 'agree', but rather 'agree very much, so much that it would be nonsical to say that I disagree'. I don't see how an understatement can fit in the 'I couldn't ... less' pattern.
• Do we know who Boris was talking to - cos that might have a bearing on his meaning ... Poor Boris, first Liverpool, then kicked out of the shadow cabinet, then this ... the poor man must be wondering when it's all going to stop ...
• Monkeyfilter: My ambivalence is overwhelming.
• Since the artcle mentions that Boris was on HIGNFY, it's obvious that he wasn't being serious. It was clearly a humourous way to baffle the questioner. My parsing: I could not fail to disagree with you less = I could not disagree with you more
• ...the longest sentence ever... Not even close. There's a sentence in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason that, if I recall correctly, runs rougly two and a half pages. Been a long time since I slogged through it.
• I'm still confused about 2003. There's stuff we know we know, stuff we know we don't know, and stuff we don't know we don't know. But what about stuff we don't know we know? Now, going a step further, do people think there's stuff . . . . . . we know we know we know? . . . we know we know we don't know? . . . we know we don't know we know? . . . we know we don't know we don't know? . . . we don't know we know we know? . . . we don't know we know we don't know? . . . we don't know we don't know we know? . . . we don't know we don't know we don't know?
• I could not fail to disagree with you less = I could not disagree with you less = I agree with you (I suppose).
• I shall agree to fail to disagree with the agreement that the agreeable Boris has agreed to disagree with the statements made in agreement of his disagreeable appearance on the show which he agreed to be on.
• This thread is totally non-non-non-non-heinous.
• i fail to disagree with you more
• or less
• on second thought i succeed in disagreement en toto but i cede agreeability
• I could not fail to disagree with you less. I could not fail to (disagree with you less). I could not fail to agree with you more. I could not (fail to agree) with you more. I could not disagree with you more.
• 'Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?' - from Cardiff MP Rhodri Morgan when asked is he would like to be the labour leader of the new Welsh Assembly. That's not unclear, that's just a really striking and interesting image. God forbid that we eviscerate our language in the effort to be "clear". This is not what Orwell wrote against, but the opposite - the rich, imagistic language of Swift which is powerful and extremely clear.
• MetaFilter: I could not fail to disagree with you less.
• i completely fail to disagree, jb but the knickerbicker i continue to fail agreement with i fail to agree to disagree
• Yeah, I actually like the duck image. Reminds me of some of the "Plum Bayou"-isms my dad comes out with from time to time. For instance: "It was so cold outside, he was shakin' like a dog shittin' a peach seed." We definitely want to keep striking imagery like that in the language.
• I should've used equal signs for clarity. or arrows or something.
• ⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑ ⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑ ⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑ ⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑ ⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑ ⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑⇓⇑
• Freethought: You know, I really don't know. Nor do I really know if I care that I don't know that I know I don't care to know.
• Build-your-own Dance Dance Revolution.