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from the black-and-white-and-grey-all-over dept.
The words 'yes' and 'no' may seem like two of the easiest expressions to understand in any language, but their actual behaviour and interpretation are surprisingly difficult to pin down. In a paper published in the scholarly journal Language, two linguists examine the workings of 'yes' and 'no' and show that understanding them leads to new insights concerning the understanding of questions and statements more generally.
Floris Roelofsen (University of Amsterdam) and Donka F. Farkas (UC -- Santa Cruz) provide a comprehensive account of 'polarity particles', as these words are called, across languages, and explain the intricate pattern of their distribution. For example, "Yes, it is" and "No, it isn't" are acceptable answers to the question "Is the door open or is it not open?," but not to "Is the door open or is it closed?." Furthermore, the intonation used when pronouncing a sentence can affect whether 'yes' or 'no' are appropriate responses to it.
The original article came from Science Daily, but was also covered by phys.org.
The abstract (full study available to subscribers only) can be found at the Project Muse page from Johns Hopkins University.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Friday June 19 2015, @09:51PM
Brings to mind my the 80s date rape campaigns, "no means no" - yes and incomprehensible means incomprehensible, but how how does that help anyone ? Ok, we could save a lot of pages in dictionaries if we just printed "$x means $x # to use this dictionary please substitute required word for $x in formula", but otherwise completely useless, particularly in the realms of human sexual interaction.
"no"
"um, no doesn't mean anything, it is a response to a question did I ask you a question ?"
"no, no means no, it means um it means stop what you are doing"
"ok, but why didn't you say that ?"
"well in this case I didn't mean stop, well I did, but really I meant do this instead"
"ok, um you're screaming should I stop ?"
"NO"
"[stops] but you said no means..."
"why did you stop when i said no you stupid idiot, why are all men such morons"
"[thinks]jeez, I know why they invented roofies..."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2015, @06:15AM
As for your (hopefully feigned) confusion in the situation you've contrived, there's an easy way out. Never allow yourself to get into a situation where consent is merely assumed, where full agreement on the extent of your activities hasn't been decided, etc. Doing that is more natural-feeling and fun...until things go wrong and your life gets fucked over.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Saturday June 20 2015, @01:06PM
The fact that the message was made pointless by turning it into a snappy slogan is my objection - yes its snappy, but it has lost its meaning, all style and no substance.
I am familiar with hard and soft limits safewords etc. but I also know that most of the world is not a scene where you sign contracts before playing. "No" can mean a million different things depending on context, in the BDSM world only a fuckwit would choose "No" as a safeword, hence only a fuckwit would believe it is a sensible choice of word for immediately terminating an encounter in the vanilla world.