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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   1728 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 5, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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According to English grammar and logic, if you say "There's not nothing," you are saying that there is something. According to Spanish grammar, if you say "no hay nada," you are asserting that there is nothing. But within Spanish logic, should "no hay nada" mean that there is nothing, or that there is something? I understand the level of "logic" of Spanish that dictates that the "no" must agree with the "nada" but in English the "not" cancels out the "nothing" and makes it something (even though most people who use double negatives- "ain't nothing" for example- are implying the Spanish "logic" of matching.)

In other words, if you have grown up speaking only Spanish your whole life, would you believe that the "no" SHOULD cancel out the "nada," in the way that English speakers often understand that "I could care less" is used to mean "I couldn't care less," or is it completely logical within the language of Spanish for the "no" to match the "nada"?

I haven't grown up speaking only Spanish my whole life, but I expect those who have would apply Spanish-intuition to English.

I think "I could care less" is like "could of" -- people say it because it sounds right and they don't think about the logic. People do not say "I could care less" because the logic checks out. So in that sense it is unrelated to (double) negatives.

The funnest fact I know: Famously, "Si" is "yes" in Spanish and "Oui" is "yes" in French. But "Si" also means "yes" in French: "yes, in a no kind of way."

Alice: "You didn't get a TV, right?"

Bob: "Yes."

Confusing, right? As a stupid autistic person, I got used to replying "Correct" or "Wrong" to these kinds of questions.

French still does that? I only recently learned that English used to have those distinctions, between "yes/no" and "yea/nay".

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