negative kyla trapezium. ...fine, TROPISM. 060315 ... nom body image 070304 ... epitome of incomprehensibility My former prof didn't like me using this word as a synonym for bad. "If you got a negative result for a cancer test, would that be bad?" Good point. His wider point, which I can't remember well enough to quote, was to the effect that it doesn't make great sense to use "negative" by itself, since it exists in relation to a positive. Often two negatives make a positive. In subtraction, if they are adjacent (the negative and the minus sign are basically the same thing), they magically turn into a plus: -9 - 3 = -12, but -9 - (-3) = -9 + 3 = -6 In division or multiplication, two negatives cancel out, turning positive: -9 x -3 = 18 But to return to Professor Rhetorical Question's example, that test result could be a double negative. Let cancer = negative; no cancer = positive. So, a negative result for cancer is a double negative, making it positive. Thus proving: a) I don't know nothing, and b) two wrongs make a 180 degree angle. 141126 ... e_o_i (Beyond good and evil, you enter the realm of patterns, like math or grammar.) 141126 ... e_o_i Ha. Wrong number. -3 x -9 = 27, of course. Unless... unless it is opposite day. What's the opposite of 27? 141126 ... raze when i was young enough that the book of words in my brain was just a sketchy rough draft, i thought being negative and being naked were the same thing. this was how i found myself walking through the kitchen of my temporary_inherited_grandmother in my underwear, saying, "i'm a little bit negative right now," while my stepfather howled until his stomach hurt. 230908 what's it to you? who go blather from