Re: CHAT: Nov 11th

Nik Taylor wrote:

> Exactly, and there are plenty of neo-Nazis here in the US to prove
that
> a common ground can be reached between German Nazis and American
> English-speakers, and NOT between English-speaking WASPs and
> English-Speaking non-WASPs.
(For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the acronym, WASP means
"White Anglo-Saxon Protestant" and often, though not in this instance

as far as I can tell, connotes "rich; golf-playing; constipated;
boring.")

Nik, just to clarify, you surely must mean "it is possible for
English-speaking WASPs and English-speaking non-WASPs to fail to
reach
an agreement," not "it is not possible for those two groups to reach
an agreement."

Yet the latter is a much easier reading of your sentence.

<obConlang -- er, um, this has something to do with the order in
which
the negative and modal are applied, and probably varies a lot from
language to language.