Monday, October 29, 2012

questions - Response to "Would you not do it?"



If posed with the subject question, given that I will not do the action in question, then what is the correct answer




No, I will not do it.




or





Yes, I will not do it.




#1 sounds better to me, but #2 is more logical. #1 sounds somewhat paradoxical in context of the question.


Answer



I would use the first one as "No" asserts negativity. The following Wikipedia post could be helpful here:




According to Grimes, the answer

"yes" asserts a positive answer and
the answer "no" asserts a negative
answer, irrespective of the form of
the question. But in fact simple "Yes"
or "No" word sentence answers to
yes-no questions can be ambiguous in
English. For example, a "Yes" response
to the question "You don't beat your
wife?" could mean either "Yes, I don't
beat my wife." or "Yes, I do beat my

wife." depending from whether the
respondent is replying with the
truth-value of the situation, or is
replying to the polarity used in the
question. This ambiguity does not
exist in languages that employ echo
answers. In the Welsh language, for
example, the response "ydw" ("I am")
has no such ambiguity when replying to
a question.




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