Nothing

See also: Nothing (homonymy)

The word nothing indicates an absence of thing (S), without the concept of enumeration or mathematical concept which sticks to the number Zero. “There is nothing here” means that no object is present, without a priori on the nature of the objects which could have been at the place considered.

It is exact that the empty set is the unit which does not contain anything, but here the word “nothing” is used as it would be it in any field: only in a negative way. Indeed, they are not least tricks of to only be entered the French language in the form of its exact opposite: the Latin word LMBO , which indicates all kinds of Chose S and in the forefront of them the public thing (Res Publica ) or République.

The French speakers, after being itself constrained during centuries with always specifying the negation by a complementary particle (… not , … more , … drop ), ended up neglecting the greatest part of the negative phrase: they preserve hardly than the complementary particle and transform the thing into its opposite, i.e. precisely nothing.

Examples

He was studied by the humorist Raymond Devos in “Speaking anything to say”:

… Once nothing… it is nothing!
Twice nothing… it is much!
But three times nothing! … For three times nothing one can already buy something! … And for expensive step!

“Nothing” is also the answer to a riddle which circulates much since the beginning of the years 2000 (in particular in the series of books on the gods of Bernard Werber):

That is what is more powerful than God,
more malicious than the devil,
the poor have some,
the rich person need some,
if one eats some, one dies?

To note that the riddle does not function perfectly in French grammar, since the answer will give Nothing is more powerful than God who is not correct.

See too

nothing

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