Much needed gap

[Ron Hardin]

How does ``fills a much-needed gap'' work to mean its opposite?

Metonymy would have the gap standing for the subject by its filling, and then
much-needed modifying the subject by metonymy. Perhaps that's the shortest path
explanation.

``Plague fills a much-needed gap'' claims to have found a point of view that sees
plague as positive.

Does it do so in any other language? Maybe it's only the force of an agglomeration
of clichés, unique to English: much-needed work, and fills a gap.

[Joe Fineman]

Post by Ron Hardin
How does ``fills a much-needed gap'' work to mean its opposite?

Does it really do so? I first heard this sentence quoted (probably 30
years ago) as a witticism in a hostile review: "This book fills a
much-needed gap." Are there people who don't get the joke? If so, I
suggest an extra-grammatical cause, viz. stupidity.

[Ron Hardin]

Post by Joe Fineman

Post by Ron Hardin
How does ``fills a much-needed gap'' work to mean its opposite?

Does it really do so? I first heard this sentence quoted (probably 30
years ago) as a witticism in a hostile review: "This book fills a
much-needed gap." Are there people who don't get the joke? If so, I
suggest an extra-grammatical cause, viz. stupidity.

It couldn't be a joke if it didn't first take on the literal opposite sense.

You can find it all over as a mistake with google, eg.

``The Tel Quel Reader presents for the first time in English many of the
key essays written by the Tel Quel group. It fills a much needed gap in
the literature available on the postsructuralist movement. Essays
by Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, a member of Tel Quel's editorial
board, and a fascinating interview with Roland Barthes are all here made
available for the first time in English.''

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/schools/hums/french/pgr/tqr.html

which in all seriousness isn't stupidity, but simply not spotting the
literal meaning being the opposite.

[Joe Fineman]

Post by Ron Hardin

Post by Joe Fineman

Post by Ron Hardin
How does ``fills a much-needed gap'' work to mean its opposite?

Does it really do so? I first heard this sentence quoted
(probably 30 years ago) as a witticism in a hostile review: "This
book fills a much-needed gap." Are there people who don't get the
joke? If so, I suggest an extra-grammatical cause,
viz. stupidity.

It couldn't be a joke if it didn't first take on the literal
opposite sense.

I disagree. I heard it as a joke the first time, and I never took it
in the literal opposite sense. The original witticism, IMO, took the
following form: I will make up a sentence that looks at first glance
like "This book performs a much-needed service" or "This book fills a
much-lamented gap", but actually means the opposite, so that what
seems at first glance to be a banal compliment turns out to be a
barbed criticism.

It's like that Freudian slip in which a woman complains, "All a man
needs to be marriageable is five sound limbs" -- mixing "four sound
limbs" with "five sound senses", but the mixture has a meaning of its
own.

Post by Ron Hardin
You can find it all over as a mistake with google, eg.
``The Tel Quel Reader presents for the first time in English many of
the key essays written by the Tel Quel group. It fills a much needed
gap in the literature available on the postsructuralist
movement. Essays by Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva, a member of Tel
Quel's editorial board, and a fascinating interview with Roland
Barthes are all here made available for the first time in English.''
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/schools/hums/french/pgr/tqr.html
which in all seriousness isn't stupidity, but simply not spotting
the literal meaning being the opposite.

Having invaded a descriptivist newsgroup, I am estopped for retorting,
in all seriousness, that stupidity is well known to be pretty common.
You win; it's an idiom, in circles I do not frequent.

[Tom Breton]

Post by Ron Hardin
How does ``fills a much-needed gap'' work to mean its opposite?
Metonymy would have the gap standing for the subject by its filling, and then
much-needed modifying the subject by metonymy. Perhaps that's the shortest path
explanation.

That would be the explanation using systematic polysemy, that
"much-needed" modifies not "gap" itself but something related to
"gap". In this explanation it translates to "It fills a gap whose
contents, when it is filled, will be something much-needed"

But I think this has more in common with double-negatives: the speaker
merely inserts the same idea twice, oblivious to the effect on the
logical structure. Here it translates to, as you say, "It fills a
gap, and is much-needed".

Post by Ron Hardin
Does it do so in any other language? Maybe it's only the force of
an agglomeration of clichés, unique to English: much-needed work,
and fills a gap.

Double-insertion is common among langauges, n'est ce pas?

And the moral is, don't insert no idea twice. }:)