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MIRTH and mix-up strike their zenith when a serviceman asks a Japanese a negative question and expects a simple "yes" or "no" for an answer. A Japanese "yes" is an American "no" and vice-versa. For instance, if the GI should ask, "You haven't gone yet?" a Japanese would answer, "Yes, I haven't."

This sort of double-talk places the serviceman in a rather confusing and comical situation. He takes the "yes" for an affirmative answer, naturally, and the "I haven't" for a negative answer. English books say that two negatives make an affirmative - but what do an affirmative and a negative make? To the Japanese it makes a negative; to the serviceman it makes nothing at all.

But sooner or later the GI catches on and even when he gets back home, in the land where a "yes" is a "yes" and a "no" is a "no", he is apt to stick to the Japanese verbal shenanigans.

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