Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

I’ll update you on my cable-cutting process soon, but for this week, here’s a look into the things that keep me up at night. Literally. This is the type of shite that makes my brain whirl like a dervish when it wakes me up at 4AM.

There’s a language construct that has bothered me for a long time. It’s the “negative question.” It’s like the question in the title of this post or, as found in the large portion of my viewing and reading intake that includes British and “period” drama, it’s often tacked on to the end of a sentence, as in, “She is a handsome woman, wouldn’t you say?”

In general, I don’t have a problem with negative inquiries.

Unless, of course, I have to answer them.

Consider the question: Aren’t you going to the party?

• Yes? No?
• Yes, I’m not going? or No, I’m not going?
• Yes, I’m going? or No, I’m going?

I fully realize that my confounded state is entirely due to my overthinking the thing. It’s why I wake up at 4AM in the first place, right? I mean, if I’m going to the party the answer to “Aren’t you going?” is a knee-jerk “Yes,” — that is, if I was in the habit of actually going to parties — but when I think of the words and their meaning … well, I get lost in the weeds.

Some other languages have solved this problem. They have a yes and a no like English, but also have a different yes for use in just this situation. It’s sort of a “contradictory” yes. If a Francophone planned to go to the party, s/he would answer the question “Are you going?” with Oui, but would answer the question “Aren’t you going?” with Si, meaning “Yes, in contradiction to your question’s implication, I am indeed going.”

Why doesn’t English have this “contradictory” yes?

Turns out, we did. Early English had a contradictory yes and the word for it was — wait for it — the word for it was yes.

Has your head exploded yet? Just wait.

Where French and some other languages have this three-form system (e.g., oui, si, non), early English had what’s called the four-form system. Yep. We not only had a contradictory yes, we had a contradictory no.

The words yes and no were answers to a negative question, and for positive questions, we had yea and nay. In practice, it would have worked like this:

• Are you going to the party?
  • Yea (I am going).
  • Nay (I am not going).
• Aren’t you going to the party?
  • Yes (I am going).
  • No (I am not going).

If this is not “as clear as is the summer’s sun” to you, don’t fret. The English four-form system prevailed only from the mid-1300s to the mid-1500s, and in the latter days confused even such steel-trap minds as Sir Thomas More who, in describing it, gave examples that contradicted his own definition. I guess even old Sir Thom had a bad day now and then. (Especially at the end, there.)

Why did we drop the four-form system? The same reason the informal-formal/inferior-superior distinction between thou and you was dropped: It was just too flipping confusing.

So, now that we have a two-form yes/no system, how do we answer a negative question and avoid ambiguity? As with most idiomatic constructs, it’s just a matter of knowing. By answering “Yes” to “Aren’t you going to the party?” you’re saying that you are going. “No” means you aren’t going.

For my part, though, given the overly specific way my mind works, I will probably answer “Aren’t you going to the party?” with an unambiguous “Yes, I am” or — more likely — with “No, I’m not.”

k