Discussions

Hi all,

I have some troubles in negating the following:

  • Head injury is too trivial to ignore.

  • Head injury is too trivial not to ignore.

    • I am not very sure whether I should negate "too" or, rather, "to" in the above sentences.

    Thanks very much,

    Leon

    0

    5 comments

    • User Avatar
      sunday9t9t677
      Friday, Jul 17 2020

      .

      0
    • User Avatar
      mirnachamp303
      Tuesday, Jul 14 2020

      Following your thread, I think the notation comes down to preference and the expressive power needed. The difficulty I think you're perceiving is the embedded logic. But I would keep it as simple as possible.

      "Head injury is NOT too trivial to ignore."

      Here, I think the 'not' is working on the predicate 'too trivial to ignore' (the whole). If I had to turn to logic:

      HI -----> ~TTI

      'too trivial ' means 'insignificant/of little worth'

      Which I understand to mean, "Head injury is not insignificant to ignore" or colloquially head injury is significant to acknowledge.

      2
    • User Avatar
      popertetsu146 OP
      Tuesday, Jul 14 2020

      Thanks for the help, ObjectionQuarantined and sylviatantran !

      Following your comments, ObjectionQuarantined, so you would choose to negate "to ignore", correct?

      Sylvia, how would you understand this sentence: "Head injury is NOT too trivial to ignore."

      For me, it means the same as ""Head injury is not so trivial that we cannot ignore". But there still an ambiguity here:

      It could mean: "to ignore a head injury or not does not associate with it being too trivial or not."

      Or, "Head injury is so trivial that we can ignore."

      I am still not sure which one is more appropriate as a correct negation understanding.

      Hope someone could share your insights, or comments!

      Thanks.

      0
    • User Avatar
      sylviatantran380
      Friday, Jul 10 2020

      I believe you would negate the "too." I normally try to find the main verb in the sentence, which is "is" in your example, and the negate the main verb. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong?). So the negated of both of your examples would be:

      Head injury is NOT too trivial to ignore.

      Head injury is NOT too trivial not to ignore.

      So sentence 2 would have too negatives, so then it would be translated colloquially to:

      Head injury is not too trivial to acknowledge (because "not to ignore" something is to acknowledge it).

      Hope that makes sense, and if I'm wrong, please someone correct me.

      2
    • User Avatar
      docmarsey318
      Friday, Jul 10 2020

      I've seen this in some questions where you'd usually just make the Ignore a subscript of Trivial and then negate it or not negate it

      1

    Confirm action

    Are you sure?