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Sweet Geoff, no matter your vocation, location, or concatenation, you're the most quantum mechanic I know! (Thanks, Anna, for that lovely allusion!) Hey, Anna, wanna come up here an' go to a hockey game some time?? 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Don't quite agree AnnaS.
Historically, women were taught that is was <unladylike> to be too forceful or too straightforward. The fact that *yes* and *no* have only one meaning forces many women to use longer phrases or to avoid having to say them at all.
Take, for example, a woman who gets invited to a Tupperware party but does not want to go. More often than not she will try to come up with any excuse possible (I have a doctor’s appointment on that day, my sister is in town, my son has a recital that morning, bridge night, poker night, diddle night…) on and on, instead of just saying no. The word no is so unwaveringly clear-cut that she just can’t say it. It sounds too blunt, therefore unladylike and consequently impolite. Take out your chequebook cause you know you’re buyin’ plastic pots.
A straight out yes can be just as hard to say for a lot of women. “do you want the last chocolate éclair?” I shouldn’t. I couldn’t possibly. Well, you ain’t getting it. The guy beside you will take it because he believes you have just said no, and he said, well, yes.
I don’t think that a woman saying *yes* and *no* interchangeably while enjoying a bit of playful nooky is applicable to this conversation. The words in that situation are not meant to be real. It is also not said on the same tone. She could say “mononucleosis” and it would have the same meaning and impact.
We won’t get into the real Yes / No of sexual contact here as that is usually a debate as heated as politics and religion.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Just joshing with you Geoff. Olive branch.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Many children learn to say "no" before they learn to say "yes". As an incentive to get my youngest daughter to say "yes" I would ask her if she wanted some ice cream. If she did not say "yes" I would start to put it away. For several weeks the closest she could come to saying "yes" was to say "nnno" softly with a tragic look. But I then would ask her "Shall I put it away" Then the "no" was emphatic, and she got her ice cream.
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
Many children learn to say "no" before they learn to say "yes".
Because that's what they hear more often?
Bingley
Bingley
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belM demurs: Don't quite agree AnnaS. Help this old lady out. Sounds like you do agree by supplying more examples!  Now, as for that term "nooky": apparently it's OK to say in Canada but around here it's pretty obscene. Ah, the nuances.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hey, Anna, wanna come up here an' go to a hockey game some time??[taking-deep-breath emoticon] Er... NO , thank you, Jackie!  (but I wouldn't mind seeing your baseball bats)
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Carpal Tunnel
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>Now, as for that term "nooky": apparently it's OK to say in Canada but around here it's pretty obscene. Ah, the nuances
Really? I didn't know. It's always amazing that a word can be so tame in one area and extreme in an other. You ofter hear things like this when words are translated into other languages but it surprises me when the language is the same.
I am pretty sure I have heard the word on U.S. television. Do you think it is a regional thing?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Many children learn to say "no" before they learn to say "yes".
No is a much more forceful word than yes. No lets you impose your will and that's a heady feeling at the age when a child is beginning to handle speech. Yes is a word of acquiescence and the child has had enough of that.
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old hand
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old hand
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Many children learn to say "no" before they learn to say "yes".
Because that's what they hear more often?
I think it has to do with the complexity of the word. (Linguistics specialists - HELP!) While NO isn't quite a simple plosive, it's far less complex than the glide/mouth shape change/fricative needed for YES. So, both neural and anatomical development must be a factor in what sounds an infant first makes. (You physicians, please hop in here!)
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