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Here's another possibility, the first one that occurred to me: the "no" is a rejection of the implicit alternative to what was stated. The author ends up at a fairly convincing alternative explanation, though.
For "Would you like ice cream?" you'd say "Totally" because the connotation is good. "Don't you just want to eat the whole tub of ice cream" -- "no, totally", is a reasonable response because you're resisting the negative connotation of pigging out.
I think this is actually unrelated to the "Yeah, No" phenomenon.
Seems simple enough to me. The "No" is directed at defusing a redundant introductory lecture. Translate as: "No, you don't have to explain further, I completely understand" "No, stop, I've already heard of that and I'm totally onboard with your opinion" I spend a lot of time being introduced to topics I'm already familiar with, but just nodding politely or saying "yeah" is interpreted as active listening, as "I'd lik…
A twist on this is the Irish vernacular I grew up with where one repeats yes/no on a sharp intake of breath. Where I think breathing is some form of social cue for agreement.
Pat: Shure didn't O'Duffy make a right clown of himself in the pub last night
Mick: (breathing in) ehhYeah Yeah yeah, (nod head to one side and wink knowingly) no, he shure did.
For lack of a better explanation, it's essentially a negative "yes", used to negate a negation.
For instance:
A: "Don't you understand?"
B: "Si"
I find it very simple yet quite powerful.
French has an interesting word which somewhat clarifies this situation: "si" (not the conditional "if" in this case). For lack of a better explanation, it's essentially a negative "yes", used to negate a negation. For instance: A: "Don't you understand?" B: "Si" Meaning "No, I don't agree with you, but yes, I do understand". I find it very simple yet quite powerful.
As a non-native English speaker "No, Totally" doesn't sound natural at all to me ("Yes, Totally" sounds better and makes way more sense). I only understood what the author was really talking about when he introduced other examples (like to dust ).
>As a non-native English speaker "No, Totally" doesn't sound natural at all to me I'm a native English speaker and "No, Totally" doesn't sound at all natural to me either.
Example(leveraged from jasallen's example in another post): Don't you totally want to eat the whole tub of ice cream?
As a spoken response in this edge case "No, totally"(yes I very much want to eat it all) would be indistinguishable from "No totally" (yes I want to eat it all, but I am not as enthusiastic about doing so as you are).
No, English is messed up :P I learned about some of this from learning Japanese where I had to learn you answer the question directly rather than confirm the negative by repeating it. In Japanese: Q: You don't like cigars do you A: Yes (Yes I don't like cigars) In English Q: You don't like cigars do you A: No (it's effectively confirming the negative of "like") My Japanese friends learning English of course found Eng…
In which case "You're quite correct, I prefer not to smoke cigars" should work just as well as its closest Japanese equivalent.
> Saying yes as often as possible is, famously, the first rule of improv, vital to maintaining energy, imagination, and humor. It is also, I have long thought, a sure sign that you’re falling in love, not to mention crucial to sustaining that love over the long haul. And, while sometimes impractical, dangerous, or just plain dumb, saying yes to as much stuff as possible is, over all, a pretty good strategy for getting through life.