vibhav wrote:
SanDiegoJake could you tell me how to negate this sentence:
Most prospective parents who apply to adopt babies donot meet the minimum standards.
Related question:
1. Is most equivalent to some in which case the logical opposite would be none right?
2. Should we negate most and donot simultaneously or just one of them and if so which one?
Thanks in advance!
Hey there vibhav,
In general, it's dangerous to think of negation as simply changing one word to its logical opposite. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't. What you want to do to negate is, instead, think, "What if it's not true that..." in this case, "What if it's not true that most prospective parents who apply to adopt babies do not meet the minimum standards? " Then, think it through. If it is not true that most parents who apply do not meet the minimum standards, then it's not 'most', it could be the case that it's less than half or even none. So the way I'd think about the negation is that "Less than half, or possibly none, of the propsective parents who apply to adopt babies do not meet the minimum standards."
Related answers.
1) "Most" and "some" are not at all equivalent. Most means "more than half". So the negation of "most" would be "Not more than half", which could be less than half or could be none at all. Some just means "not none". "Some" could be just a few, half, more than half, or even all. How could "some" mean "all"? Good question. It would be technically true if I said that some days of the week end in the letter "y". True, right? Some do. In fact, all do. But I only admitted to you that some do. So you can't take the word "some" to mean "only some". That's different. "Some" includes "all", but "only some" precludes "all." The negation of "some" is "not some", so "none".
2) Never both, always one and if there's a quantity word such as "all/most/some/none" then always that one, in this case, negate the "most". But as I said, trying to just pick the word to negate may get you in trouble. So I always think about the entire meaning, and then ask myself "what if that's not true?" That's the safest bet.
Good luck!