its been puzzling me and a group of mates for a while now, in the song livin on my own, freddie says he dont have no time for no mnkey business, the thing is, thats a double negative, so what we need to know is, did he or didnt he have time for a bit of the old monkey business?
any help is greatly appreciated.
The double no is simply a rhetoric mode for emphasizing the said thing. Hence, he had NO time for it.
"I ain't got no money" means I don't have money. You just stress the fact.
it really isnt too clear though, i mean he says he DONT have NO time for NO monkery business, so he could have had plenty of time. it really is confusing
mr-farrokh-bulsara-esq wrote: it really isnt too clear though, i mean he says he DONT have NO time for NO monkery business, so he could have had plenty of time. it really is confusing
You'd better ask this guys who made English language. If this line would be translated into Russian - word by word - the line would be sounds pretty strange.
Bohardy wrote: Well clearly he didn't have time for monkey-business, since "I DON'T have NO time for NO monkey-business" is a TRIPLE NEGATIVE.
ahh you're correct then, he had a lot of time for doing no monkey business, case solved, thank you!
but he didnt say he never did any monkey business in the past, so the case is still open i say. as he was talking in present tense.
Depends on what you call monkey business ... I think he just wrote a song to make it clear - with a triple negative - that he definitely doesnt have any time for any monkey business.
Anyway, he wrote a song about TIME - its called Time.
it is interesting how Freddie starts to sing about the importance of time in this period of his career...eg Time single, WWTLF, a good portion of the Innuendo album. Some of the band's most amazing accomplishments, like Rock in Rio and Live Aid, also occur around the point when Freddie released the MBG album.
@ whether he ain't got no time, ain't got no monkey or business for the monkey, and what kind of business would a monkey engage in? is known only to Freddie :P
mr-farrokh-bulsara-esq wrote: it really isnt too clear though, i mean he says he DONT have NO time for NO monkery business, so he could have had plenty of time. it really is confusing
it's simple maths - not english
two negatives = one positive
therefore any EVEN number of Negatives = positive outcome
which must mean any ODD number for negatives = NEGATIVE outcome
Don't, No + No = Negative ;-)
I don't know anything about this monkey business but I would surely like to know more about it. By the way, I am thinking about starting a home care agency and was looking online for a business plan for home care agency and found a sample on OGS capital and really liked it a lot. So I gave them the request to make me a good business plan.