Nerdy linguistics discussion on tumblr

[snowgall]

Yesterday I got into a lively discussion with another tumblr user on the proper interpretation of one of Bucky's lines in Captain America: The First Avenger.

The line in question goes like this:

“Hell, no. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight, I’m following him.”

The original poster thought this line was illogical, while I thought it made perfect sense.

This engendered a lot of back and forth debate!

If anyone's interested in reading it, the resulting tumblr thread is here, and my follow-up post with more technical linguistic-y discussion is here.

Where my linguists at? khalulu ... shiftylinguini ... pauraque ... I'm sure I'm missing some :)

Comments

[pauraque]

There have been some great posts on Language Log about constructions like this. I think "too stupid not to..." was specifically discussed in one a few months back. It generated some good discussion about how difficult it was even for linguists to notice that their instinctive interpretations of these constructions were illogical (though sometimes pragmatically correct in that they did lead to the speaker's intended meaning).

Unfortunately I'm on my way out the door and I couldn't immediately find the particular post I was thinking of, though a search for "too stupid not to" turned up another one from a few years ago.

[snowgall]

Thanks for the link! I did think that someone else must have discussed this phenomenon before :) I just now read the blog post, but haven't had time to read all the other references and posts linked by it.

As far as the blog post goes, they pretty much do the same thing I did - describe the phenomenon but not explain it. (Not that I can explain it either!)

The only thing we can say with confidence is that these constructions are tricky to parse and many people have differing opinions as to what the "right" interpretation is!

:)