Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 June 20

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June 20

You can't help but not answer this question

This morning I heard a TV news presenter say "You can't help but not feel for the victims".

Is "You can't help but not X" a recognised expression? It seems rather tortuously convoluted, and on the face of it seems to be saying that X is the thing you won't do, yet I sense they're wanting to say that X is the thing you will do. Had she said "You can't help but not feel for the victims", I'd have had no issue.

Is it in the same class as "Let's see if we can't Z", actually meaning "Let's see if we can Z"?

Am I parsing these expressions properly, or are they unparseable and must be accepted in their entirety? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:13, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion the presenter just made a mistake. --76.69.116.93 (talk) 22:15, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

If the presenter "just made a mistake", then this raise questions such as whether such mistakes are unusually common (and if they are, then why), and whether such mistakes can easily go unnoticed (and ditto). The phenomenon often comes up at Language Log; see "misnegation". -- Hoary (talk) 22:23, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

"Let's see if we can't..." is kind of reverse psychology. "You can't help but not..." is ignorant. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:24, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

To say that this or that expression "is ignorant" doesn't seem to me to elucidate anything about it. The questioner isn't asking for a value judgment. The NOW corpus has several tokens of "can't help but not" (tip: you have to input "can't" as "ca n't") and a quick glance shows that most if not all are examples of what the denizens of Language Log call misnegation, seemingly intended to say something very different from what they more literally mean. A psycholinguist might wonder how it was that so many managed to get into print, or how it is that so many sound kind-of reasonablish until one starts to think about them. -- Hoary (talk) 03:19, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Like I said, ignorant... Ignorance of the literal meaning of what they're saying. Another common example being, "I could care less..." If the word "ignorant" bothers you, how about "not paying attention". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:08, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I wonder how you can mind-read ignorance, Bugs. Are the speakers paying attention? Though I can guess, I don't claim to know that either. ¶ Jack of Oz, when you ask if these are unparseable, I think you're asking if they're non-compositional. They are indeed non-compositional. Here (found via NOW) is an interesting example:

And for all the rest of you, I hope that tonight can be the beginning of something, so that even if we see each other across the corporate battle lines one day, that you will know that I am rooting for you. I can’t help but not. Because I am a partner by trade, and a mother and a sister by design. And I am so proud to be on this journey with you.

It's within what appears to be an impassioned but carefully phrased monologue, embedded within an article by somebody else. Judged against my own idiolect, "but not" is here a mistake for "but do so" or similar. I don't rush to assume that other lects are like mine in classing "but not" as a mistake here. But I'll make a working assumption for now (an assumption I'd be happy to see contradicted) that yes, calling "but not" a mistake is indeed a mainstream opinion among speakers of L1 standard English. ¶ So far, so uninteresting. The more interesting question is: If indeed it is a mistake, then how did it get past the proofreading process of (I vaguely infer) large-budget TV drama? ¶ Very simply, it appears that speakers/writers of L1 standard English, including those who are at least moderately alert, are curiously prone to misnegation errors. If you don't think that TV drama gets much in the way of proofreading, then OK, try the NYT, and:

Nor does it mean that Trump doesn't lack his own kind of strengths, not the least of which is his loudly declared indifference to elite opinion.

which comes to us via this page, which in turn comes via the Language Log misnegation link that I provided earlier and that I again recommend. -- Hoary (talk) 07:59, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I left out the possibility that it might not be as much ignorance as just plain not caring. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:46, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I would mention the phrases: "I don't want nothing" indicating that nothing is desired, yet accurately read meaning that something unnamed is desired or "I can't get no satisfaction" which is supposed to mean that that satisfaction cannot be obtained but is in fact directing toward the opposite, another would be "I almost feel sorry for X" which is supposed to mean that you feel sorry for X but again in fact indicates that you have not yet reached a point of sympathy (the latter is common in South African speech). All of these as well as the original is simply lack of education of the masses bleeding into the common tongue. This is part of the evolution of language, some, though few, of the changes seen are welcomed, but we are fairly powerless to stop this shift. Many of the modern changes I have seen creeping in I personally blame on rap and hip hip music. Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 09:35, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

See double negative. A representative of the Labour Party, discussing what could be done to curb anti-semitism in the party on the BBC, said "We need anti-semitism in the party." 62.30.198.76 (talk) 14:51, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

That malapropism reminds me of a comment supposedly made by Chicago's Mayor Daley during the 1968 Democratic Convention police riot: "The police are not there to create disorder; they're there to preserve disorder." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:48, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

@ Anton: I know what you mean. The word "entitled" has quite quickly acquired a meaning completely at odds with its proper meaning, at least when used attributively. It now means "pertaining to one who is perceived to act as if they have a right to something" rather than "pertaining to one who does have a right to something". Ridiculous. I'm tempted to say I'm entitled to be outraged at this development, but shrink from making such a statement for fear I'd be widely misinterpreted. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:55, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

• Fortunately, this new use of "entitled" is distinguishable in most cases because it is not completed by to. "Person A is entitled to the glory he has earned; person B is (= acts) entitled and should be viewed with suspicion." Of course, the old use sometimes is not completed as well. --76.69.116.93 (talk) 18:14, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

• That's why I mentioned the attributive use. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:28, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Some forum pages about the this construction: Language Log - "You can't help but not be worried", Language Log - "How can you (not) help but (not) __?" and English Forums - "Can't Help But Not". Alansplodge (talk) 18:11, 21 June 2019 (UTC)