Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Fry's English Delight

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Stephen Fry explores the highways and byways of the English language

BBC Radio 4 Extra

BBC Radio 4 FM

Fry's English Delight: Series 3

Nick Baker

Fry's English Delight: Series 3: Episode 3: Accentuate the Negative

Episode 3

Episode 3: Accentuate the Negative

Series 3

Accentuate the Negative

BBC Radio 4 - Fry's English Delight, Series 3, Accentuate the Negative

Stephen Fry explores some of the many aspects of the use of the negative in English.

Stephen Fry explores the use of the negative in philosophy, science and religion - not to mention comedy double acts. From August 2010.

Contradiction is an addiction - from philosophical dialectic to the verification of scientific and mathematical hypotheses, and from religious controversy to traditional pantomime exchanges with the audience. Oh No It Isn't, you may think. Oh, yes, it very much is.

Stephen Fry examines various aspects of the subject with language expert Professor David Crystal, theologian Melissa Raphael-Levine, philosopher Anthony Grayling, and Oliver Double, who has made a special study of comedy double-acts, and will reveal just how vital contradiction is not only for cross-patter partners but for the whole of comedy.

We learn about the Square of Opposition and about how there is more than one way to be wrong. We find out just how the law of double negatives work, and how beguiling and sometimes surprising the oxymoron can be - that little combination of a couple of words that cancel each other out in some way. Well, it's only common sense, isn't it?  

We also hear how those who claim to spot contradictions in the Bible, or the Talmud, or the Koran are essentially misguided, and we hear about a current development in English that threatens to change one of the things that has so far made the language different to French or German.

All of that, together with a lesson in when "No" does not necessarily mean no - and when "Yes" doesn't really mean yes, either.

Producer: Ian Gardhouse
ATestbed production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Fry's English Delight

Series 3

Episode 3: Accentuate the Negative

Contributors

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4