For the benefit of anyone who may not have visited the Livingstone Memorial in Blantyre, Scotland - this is what it looks like.
Of course as you will see, in spite of the presence of a few clouds, there is some fine blue sky. That's because it is always sunny in Scotland.
"Aye, right!"
The great thing about colloquial Scots is that it is probably the only language in the world where a double positive makes a very definite negative. "Aye Right!" is the ultimate expression of cynical disbelief and has to be spoken with just the right amount of sarcasm to get the required effect.
2 comments:
Thanks for this post. Looks impressive. I really must get there soon.
Apparently at a language conference once a speaker was making the very point that a double negative made a positive but a double positive never made a negative. From the back of the hall was heard, and again you have to get the intonation right, 'Yeah, yeah.'
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