How to negate "I told everyone everything about the event."

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• 1 Like

  miamisquidward Free Trial Member

  March 2021 edited March 2021 7 karma

  Number 1 would be the way I would negate this sentence. However, I would simplify even more by saying " I did not tell everyone everything about the event."

  2 Does not negate the sentence. 2 could be true while the original statement is also true.

  I can see how 3 negates the original in that 3 and the original statement could not be true at the same time. It just comes at the negation at an odd angle compared to number 1.
• 10 Likes

  KevinLuminateLSAT Alum Member

  March 2021 edited March 2021 984 karma

  OP, #1 is the correct negation, since you can negate anything by adding "it is not the case that" at the beginning. As you noted, however, it's not particularly helpful in understanding the negation. This would be the better way to understand the negation:

  "There is at least one person to whom I did not tell everything about the event."

  Or, even more explicit:

  "There is at least one person to whom I either told nothing about the event, or told some, but not all about the event."

  No. 2 is not a correct negation because it does not contradict the initial statement; "someone" means at least one, so it's entirely possible that "I told someone everything" and "I told everyone everything" are true at the same time. #3 is not a correct negation because you can contradict the initial statement merely by saying nothing; you don't have to tell everyone a partial story in order to falsify the initial statement. So #3 does not encompass the full range of possibilities that falsify the initial statement.

  If you're having some trouble understanding how we can come to the proper negation I described above, read further.

  "I told everyone everything about the event" means that I told 100% of people 100% of what I know about the event. And to make it even simpler, let's say there's 10 people in the world and exactly 10 units of information about the event. If you told all 10 people everything about the event, then you've disseminated 100 units of information (10 people each get 10 units of info).

  The bare minimum required to contradict the initial statement is merely disseminating 99 units of information or fewer. In other words, if at least one person did not get all 10 units of information from you, then you've falsified the initial statement. So, the correct negation encompasses all of these possibilities, for example:

  1. You told 9 people everything, and 1 person 9/10 units of info.
  2. You told all 10 people some, but not all.
  3. You told nothing.

  To capture the entire range of possibilities that contradict the initial statement, then, this would make sense: "There is at least one person to whom I did not tell everything about the event."
• Burden.of.Floof Core Member

  March 2021 1050 karma

  @KevinLuminateLSAT this is such a good explanation!!
• Rev_Lefe Member

  March 2021 385 karma

  Thank you, Kevin and miamisquidward, for your helpful explanations!
  So lucid and educational, Kevin's explanation is almost like a tutorial for negation.