Football, Russia, Poland, Hooligans...

**Shaka_Khan** · 06-13-2012, 08:59

Originally Posted by Centurion1

What you wrote has no influence on my preconceived notions regarding the intellectual capacity of an entire nation of
People. While I do not like poles very much for numerous reasons non of which I find necessary to share with you I also was making a flippant statement. It would be rather dense to hold
Such an opinion on millions of people.

What's your nationality, may I ask?

**Centurion1** · 06-13-2012, 17:37

Originally Posted by Shaka_Khan

What's your nationality, may I ask?

More than ten different European nations an a smattering of Asia.

It's not a real dislike it's flippant in that I may make a "pollack" joke or something along those lines. I have friends who are polish it doesn't actually bother me.

**Strike For The South** · 06-13-2012, 17:40

Originally Posted by Centurion1

More than ten different European nations an a smattering of Asia.

It's not a real dislike it's flippant in that I may make a "pollack" joke or something along those lines. I have friends who are polish it doesn't actually bother me.

See the problem is you are not smart nor funny.

So you come off as being stupid.

But don't worry, some of my best friends are mouth breathing idiots.

**Kadagar_AV** · 06-13-2012, 18:04

Originally Posted by Strike For The South

See the problem is you are not smart nor funny.

So you come off as being stupid.

But don't worry, some of my best friends are mouth breathing idiots.

It's not often that I agree with SFTS :)

**Fragony** · 06-13-2012, 18:06

Originally Posted by Strike For The South

See the problem is you are not smart nor funny.

So you come off as being stupid.

But don't worry, some of my best friends are mouth breathing idiots.

Oh Strike do we really have to teach you your own language, 'you are not smart nor funny' is a double negative, 'you are not smart or funny' or 'you are smart nor funny' is the way to go

**Strike For The South** · 06-13-2012, 18:11

Originally Posted by Fragony

Oh Strike do we really have to teach you your own language, 'you are not smart nor funny' is a double negative, 'you are not smart or funny' or 'you are smart nor funny' is the way to go

Double negatives a not rules, only suggestions.

Good enough for Shakespere, good enough for me.

**Fragony** · 06-13-2012, 18:16

Originally Posted by Strike For The South

Double negatives a not rules, only suggestions.

Good enough for Shakespere, good enough for me.

Oh ouch, a double one that is serial faillure. Keep in mind that I don't actually like trainwrecks, I can just see them

**Strike For The South** · 06-13-2012, 18:18

Originally Posted by Fragony

Oh ouch, a double one that is serial faillure. Keep in mind that I don't actually like trainwrecks, I can just see them

I have a learning disability?

**ajaxfetish** · 06-13-2012, 22:53

Originally Posted by Fragony

Oh Strike do we really have to teach you your own language, 'you are not smart nor funny' is a double negative, 'you are not smart or funny' or 'you are smart nor funny' is the way to go

Methinks you don't quite understand the English double negative, Frags (and I don't blame you). Nor has some idiosyncratic quirks; StfS's usage was just fine, even for Standard English.

Ajax

**HoreTore** · 06-13-2012, 22:55

Originally Posted by ajaxfetish

Methinks you don't quite understand the English double negative, Frags (and I don't blame you). Nor has some idiosyncratic quirks; StfS's usage was just fine, even for Standard English.

Ajax

Shouldn't it be "neither" instead of "not", though?

**lars573** · 06-13-2012, 23:07

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Shouldn't it be "neither" instead of "not", though?

Depends on whether you want to be high class or low class.

**ajaxfetish** · 06-13-2012, 23:32

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Shouldn't it be "neither" instead of "not", though?

That's certainly the more common way to say it.

A search of the Corpus of Contemporary American yields the following number of occurrences (from a field of ~425 million words):

1394: neither [adjective] nor [adjective]
21: not [adjective] nor [adjective]
30: neither [adjective] or [adjective]
839: not [adjective] or [adjective]
208: [adjective] nor [adjective] (bare form with neither neither nor nor preceding it) <-- OK, I just made my own day with that one

So Fragony's alternatives are both more common than SftS's (which would support StfS's usage feeling unnatural to Frags compared to the others), but neither is as common as the neither ... nor option, which happens to have the same pair of negative elements as StfS's. If not ... nor is wrong because it's a double negative, then neither ... nor would be, too, and this is obviously not the case. Essentially, the restriction on double negatives in Standard English doesn't seem to apply to the word nor. There are plenty of structures where nor occurs freely with other negative elements.

Ajax

edit: as far as my personal intuition goes, SftS's usage doesn't sound odd or ungrammatical at all. It feels slightly more emphatic than the alternatives to me.