voodoochild wrote:
I have a question about the above statement. Let's take another example so that we can avoid philosophical issues. Let's say the sentence says : It is not entirely false that Apple's stock price is not decreasing.
Can I say: it is true that Apple's stock price is increasing, or it is true that Apple's stock price is constant? I don't think so because 'not entirely false', in my opinion, doesn't get translated to "true."
I don't think that in the above sentence, we can cancel out two double negatives. I was taught in high school that *whenever* you see two negatives, cancel them out. This gets a bit confusing on the LSAT or the GMAT because test makers love to play with three state entities such as increasing, decreasing or constant; strengthen, weaken or irrelevant. (If you could let us know some other examples, that would be really helpful.)
I would love to hear your expert thoughts. I hope that other readers will benefit from this conversation as well.
Thanks
OK, first of all, that original sentence is a overgrown monster:
It is not entirely false that Apple's stock price is not decreasing. You certainly can eliminate the final negative:
It is not entirely false that Apple's stock price is increasing. Here we get into another subtle issue ---- if the sentence were simply.....
It is not false that Apple's stock price is increasing. ...then we could very easily change that to ----
It is true that Apple's stock price is increasing. ....or even more simply .....
Apple's stock price is increasing. A phrase like "not entirely false" is a very different beast, and can play any one of a number of complex roles. Two are
1)
Litotes --- that's the rhetorical term for emphasis by dramatic understatement.
For example:
"
It's not entirely false that Bill Gates has a lot of money."
"
George Clooney is not exactly ugly."
"
New York City is not quite the tiniest town in the USA."
In all three, we are making a rhetorical statement, emphasize one extreme by ironically denying the opposite. That's litotes. Proper delivery of these lines requires an ironic inflection in the voice --- these sentence don't work when spoken deadpan.
2) Qualifying phrase to set up a contrast--- here, one would grudging admit one thing, but immediately present a fact in the opposite direction.
"
It is not entirely false that Apple's stock price is increasing, but the board is worried about a pattern of dropping revenues."
"
It is not completely false that Bert is a fast runner, but his tendency to get injured easily casts serious doubts on his prospects as a professional athlete."
That is also a highly rhetorical use of language, typical of, say, the New Yorker magazine, but not quite as likely on the GMAT. Again, delivery would require a sophisticated inflection in the voice.
The point is ---
do not think of "
not exactly false" as in any way a simple negative. There is absolutely nothing simple about it.
Does that make sense?
Mike
close
23 Aug 2012, 10:01
