Killa?

yes

i bet the owners of loosingweight.org are pretty pissed off at google for this!

Just saw this in SMP:

the awesomeness literally asplode'd my head

I would disagree; I think the semi-colon is appropriate.

You would disagree, or you do? (Yes, I understand that yours is an acceptable construction for softening the message.)

I favor a colon in the original sentence because the second clause is so closely related to the first and the nature of that relationship is one of explanation. That's one of the principal uses of the colon; if you're using them only to introduce lists and the like, you're missing out on a significant and common opportunity to use punctuation to clarify your writing.

I'd use a colon here.

I'd use an ellipsis here...

wat

My opinion is that the fourth "that" is superfluous and redundant

I think it's obvious why the company would want it to be pronounced Point Core.

no. if they want to be called "pointcore" then they have to spell their name "pointcorps." to spell it "pointcorp" and pronounce it "pointcore" is, very simply, wrong.

Just wrote this in the durrrr challenge thread. Paused to ponder whether the bolded the articles should be there. All I know from my English classes is that the first two the articles are supposed to be there as they kind of determine the whole construction. Correct me, please.

Also, am I supposed to put quote marks around the "the" words that forego the word article? Looks a bit stupid this way (also I dislike English grammar for this, I'd advocate use of a hyphen).

Here's something that bothers me, though perhaps it shouldn't. I often hear people say:

"Let's see if we can't get there by 5:00."

Really? Why isn't it "Let's see if we can get there by 5:00?" If the goal is to get there by 5, then you want to see if you CAN get there by 5. Why do you want to see if you can't get there?

It's not a double negative, but it ruffles me in the same way a double negative would. There's no reason to negate the goal of these kinds of sentences. It sounds so much better to hear:

"Let's see if we can find your keys"
"Let's see if I can help you out"
"I'll see if I can feed your dog"

than it is to hear:

"Let's see if we can't find your keys"
"Let's see if I can't help you out"
"I'll see if I can't feed your dog"

Am I crazy?

You're not crazy. "Let's see if we can't get there" implies that the parties involved are actually going to make some kind of effort in order to achieve this goal, hence trying to NOT make it until 05:00.

However, unless they would have a specific reason to (I don't know, to annoy their host or whatever) there would usually be no reason to do this. Furthermore, I think what bothers you is that when people say this they still mean that they will try to make it.

Lastly, although I am not sure if this applies here, positive dominates negative in linguistics, as in "assets and liabilities". This may just be referring to word order though and have no meaning to your example.

Yeah, this is 100% of it. They want to get there by 5, but they say "let's see if we can't get there by 5." What's with the pessimism, dick? Drive faster.

it doesn't though

The sentence structure does. If you mean the connotative content, you are correct of course.

do you think double negatives imply a positive?

PJ, that thing that you wrote
and this remind me of the saying "(I) couldn't care less" and the wrong version of it, "I could care less". Virtually no-one uses it incorrectly on purpose unless it's made obvious eg. by stressing the word could. But it sure is being used intentionally incorrectly a lot, even though it's not a tough phrase to crack. But it's probably been discussed here before so enough about that.

Where do you see a double negative in "Let's see if we can't get there"?

it's just a general question. I really am unsure what you mean by implies in this instance

Ah, okay. Well, let me put it like this:

If I say to a friend, who is traveling with me: "Let's see if we can't make it to Houston by 05:00 PM", then that would, just by the way the sentence is structured, mean: "Let us try and see whether it will take us longer than 05:00 PM to get to Houston", i. e. arriving at 05:10, 06:30, 07:45, whatever.

However, since it seems to be CULTURALLY accepted to say cannot instead of can, my friend will understand that the goal is to make it there at or before 05:00 PM. Therein lies the "challenge" - getting to the destination in time, not trying to fail at it. It is also a logical problem: a challenge entails (usually) reaching something that has a positive effect, in this case getting there before it turns dark, arriving in time for an appointment, whatever.

It is just a misplaced negative, not a double negative.

i agree with snowden here. how does the sentence structure imply the speaker is trying NOT to do whatever is being postulated? it doesn't.

"let's see if i can't jump over this fence."

do you feel it implies the speaker will try less than his best when jumping? to me, it implies no such thing.

this kind of sentence really should be: "let's see if we can (or cannot) get there by 5," somewhat similar to the use of "whether (or not)." it doesn't bother me if someone chooses to drop the "can" instead of dropping the "cannot" portion.