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Never been this fun
“WITH Compaq, staying home has never been this fun.”
The above is a sentence taken from a print media advertisement.
Shouldn’t the intended meaning have been rendered this way: “Without Compaq, staying home has never been this fun”?
– Kengt, Penang
The expression “staying home has never been this fun” is not a negative one. The emphasis is on the present “this fun” – a high degree of fun! It is a more emphatic way of saying “staying home is most fun”. So, the sentence from the advertisement – “With Compaq, staying home has never been this fun.” – does convey its intended meaning, that Compaq makes staying at home so much fun.
A negative version of “staying home has never been this fun” would be “staying home was never much fun”. This can go with “Without Compaq, staying home was never much fun.”, where you get the double negative from “without” and “never”.
The above question and answer are taken from The Star's MIND OUR ENGLISH dated April 10.
The question is posted by me, but I am not quite satisfied with the answer; and I have done a little research trying to convince myself of the answer given.
Instead, I have found that in standard English, "never" is used for a period of time but not a specific occasion.
I hope to chance upon or be directed to an authoritative source which can confirm the usage as explained in the answer.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Double Negatives?
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1 comment:
I have seen the following posted in an English forum with two two replies received which are also reproduced below:-
WITH Compaq, staying home has never been this fun.
or
Without Compaq, staying home has never been this fun.
The above sentences are actually taken from a blog post, "Double Negatives?"
The blogger feels that the second sentence should serve the purpose intended, but the newspaper editor says that the first sentence should be the one, explaining that "staying home has never been this fun" means emphatically "staying at home is most fun".
The explanation has discounted the word "never". Is this convincing?
1st reply:-
If you re-arrange the wording to say 'Staying home with Compaq has never been this fun', it certainly makes Compaq part of an experience that is less fun than the fun we have right now. I'm inclined to agree with the blogger. The problem is how we should interpret the phrase 'with Compaq'. It really means 'With the introduction of Compaq right now, staying at home without Compaq has never been as much fun as the fun we can have with Compaq right now.'
People who write these advertising slogans don't much care about such matters. They focus on the first impact that the words make on the reader, and don't expect them to be analysed carefully.
Some people wince at the use of 'fun' as an adjective, and would prefer to say '. . . has never been this much fun'.
Best wishes, Clive
2nd reply:-
For the record, I agree with Clive, but I'd like to try a different analysis, just for the fun of it:
"With(out) Compaq, staying home has never been this fun."
Core sentence:
Staying home has never been this fun.
Look at two components and how they relate to the moment of speaking:
a) "has never been": present perfect. Something's in the past, but still - somehow - relevant to the present.
b) "this": Refers to the moment of speaking.
a+b) implies a disjunction between "tense" and "exophoric term 'this'" (exophoric = refering beyond the text to the real world; i.e. John? I know him. "him = endophoric." // While pointing at John: I know him. - "him" = exophoric): The "this" in "this fun" refers to the present; the "has never been" is in past, but it's being compared to present via the phrase "this fun".
Now add the condition:
"With(out) Compaq":
Do you align the phrase with the "this fun" part or with the "has never been" part?
Here, my intuition goes along with Clive:
"Without Compaq, staying at home has never been this fun," would instinctively make me align "Without Compaq" with "has never been". But I can kind of see how the newspaper editor comes up with "With Compaq," even though I don't think many people would have this as a first reaction, and it's really an editing artefact. All we have to do is find a way to align "with Compaq" with this. Let's try a change of punctuation:
"With Compaq! Staying at home has never been this fun."
Now, "with Compaq" on its own doesn't make much sense, but can somehow see it as short for something meaning "I'm at home with compaq now!" Again, I don't think that's a very natural interpretation (but people could prove me wrong). But if that's how the editor sees the sentence, then "With Compaq" would be aligned with "this", and the "this" would change from an "exophoric term" (referring to the situation) to an "endophoric term" (referring to the text); "this" would refer back to "(I'm at home) With Compaq!"
The interpretation of the whole sentence changes.
I would argue that this is a very unusual interpretation; but it could explain what the editor was thinking. (Still, the editing artefact caused by a confion about double negatives is probably more likely.)
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