(+)(+) = (-)

From the Oxblog:

A FRIEND JUST POINTED ME TO this very interesting obituary of Sidney Morgenbesser from the NYT Mag. I had never heard of Morgenbesser, but he sounds wonderful and fascinating. Best anecdote:

The most widely circulated tale -- in many renditions it is even presented as a joke, not the true story that it is -- was his encounter with the Oxford philosopher J. L. Austin. During a talk on the philosophy of language at Columbia in the 50's, Austin noted that while a double negative amounts to a positive, never does a double positive amount to a negative. From the audience, a familiar nasal voice muttered a dismissive, ''Yeah, yeah.''