Speech patterns can tell us a lot about a people, says Frank McNally
It seems to me, for instance, that a key to understanding Americans' optimistic approach to life is their habit of using the double negative to convey positive emotions. Whereas, for an example of the often more downbeat Irish attitude, you need look no further than the way we use the double positive to express a negative.
In case you're not familiar with the latter concept, it can be illustrated by an old joke, which goes like this: A linguistics professor was lecturing his class one day. "In English," he said, "a double negative sometimes forms a positive. In some languages though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. But there is no language anywhere in which a double positive can form a negative." To which a voice from the back of the room replied: "Yeah, right!" This may be an international joke. But the double positive is a particularly devastating rebuff in Ireland, where "yeah, right!" means "wrong"; "you will, yeah" means "you won't"; and so on.
There are some variations. Almost as damning as the Irish double positive is the positive/question combination, eg: "Oh you will, will you?"
And most ominous of all, of course, is the apparently innocuous question followed by a comma and the adverb "now". No feckless husband who declares that he is going to the pub can fail to notice the chill that descends on the room when his wife replies: "Oh are you, now?"
But the negating effect of the double positive is, I think, quintessentially Irish.
It is certainly an important weapon in the armoury of that great national character, the begrudger. Without it, he could not function nearly as well as he does.
By complete contrast, the positive use of the double negative is quintessentially American, and expresses the rugged can-do spirit that made the US great.
The writer HL Mencken thought it was the defining characteristic of his country's vernacular - he even cited examples of the triple negative and quadruple negative in everyday speech - and he used it extensively in his "translation" of the US Declaration of Independence into the language he called "American".
Here's how the original, English version of the declaration begins: "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
And here is Mencken's translation: "When things get so balled up that the people of a country have to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are on the level, and not trying to put nothing over on nobody.
"All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, you and me is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain't got no right to take away none of our rights; third, every man has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time however he likes, so long as he don't interfere with nobody else."
For obvious reasons, one could not attempt a similar translation involving the double positive and the 1916 Proclamation. The double positive is essentially a reactive form. But you can easily imagine a dialogue between Pádraig Pearse and a typical Dubliner, who happened to be passing by the GPO on Easter Monday.
Pearse: "Irishmen and Irishwomen: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom." Passer-by: "Oh she does, does she?" Pearse: "Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent national government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people." Passer-by: "Yiz will, yeah."
Pearse: "In this supreme hour, the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called." Passer-by: "Yeah, right!"
Subjected to such a withering cross-examination, maybe even Pearse would have faltered: folding up his proclamation, postponing the rebellion until further notice, and resolving to wait until the end of the war and give the Home Rule Bill another chance.