Negative Positives Are Summat, Or Are They?

 

Negative Positives

“It is not inconsistent with my argument that . . .” (meaning it is consistent). “Such a notion is not unappealing to a certain kind of pedestrian mind” (it appeals to). “You are not unwelcome at our party” (uhh, am I welcome?). What is gained by turning thoughts inside out like this by way of using a negative? Nothing. Why do people keep writing like this? I don’t know. Although I’m not un-ignorant of the phenomenon.

 In advance of his meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev—in Malta, December, 1989—President George H.W. Bush was said to have spoken of a “nonsummit summit.” Some would say it’s a summit, said HW, while others would say it’s more like an unsummit of a summit. Anyway.

At least it was summit. “Summit”—usually spelled summat—is British Yorkshire dialect for “something.”

 

The Un-Pogrom

In February, 1990, news reports on antisemitism in the Soviet Union repeated gossip asserting that on May 5 there could be a huge pogrom. This date was cited even in government warnings against pogroms. Some Jewish leaders saw the official warnings as a kind of incitement in themselves: “There will not, we repeat, not, be a big pogrom on the morning of May 5 in downtown Kiev. So don’t show up for the pogrom. That means you.”

[excerpted from the book by U.R. Bowie, Here We Be. Where Be We?]