Oddly enough, “never fails to disappoint” can have the meaning “never disappoints” as well as “routinely disappoints”. I’ve never thought about that one before
Native EN parser here. I would never consider this usage correct except as a rhetorical (facetious) insult. People may well repeat it without understanding the original nor their mistake. Although if enough people bust the syntax, it may attract descriptivist reporting, as with the widely observed malapropism "irregardless".
It’s not a matter of correctness, but of understanding. OP definitely intended to imply the content does not disappoint, and used a colloquialism most native speakers would understand
I am a native speaker and got the gist and saw the paradox, and found the phrasing a bit tortured by the triple negative. Thank you for explaining that this was a colloquialism. Now I have to go look up the etymology... And upon further inspection, this usage is actually a misnegation.
"It is a veiled insult: an ironic form of insult delivery which is misinterpreted as flattery to the buffoon who is targeted by it, much to the entertainment of anyone else within earshot who understands the true meaning."
There are East European languages, mostly Slavic ones, that have these weird double negatives which are grammatically correct and mean the opposite. A sentance such as: "I haven't never been there" means you've never been there.
This is the first time I come across this mistake / non-mistake so I misunderstood your comment. Are you sure it’s a common enough misnegation for people to understand what you meant ?
I didn’t use the expression, I don’t think I would have myself, but it didn’t even strike me as odd until I read the comment by hinkley. Did you read the original comment and think BeetleB follows John and thinks all of his content is disappointing?
Never heard that one, but maybe it's like 'could care less', which has acquired the opposite of it's actual meaning (the phrase should be 'could not care less') by repeated incorrect use.
A complete stranger who has nothing whatsoever to do with you, who has never tried to do anything for you, nor has been expected to, has never disappointed you. They've also never failed to disappoint you, because they have not failed in any regard whatsoever.
This is an example of a vacuous truth.
I've never failed an airliner landing. While that may sound like I'm boasting of being a good pilot, in fact I'm not a pilot at all, and I've never attempted such a thing.
Another vacuous truth.
Every crow in an empty set of crows is white.
Also, every crow in an empty set of crows is black.
Propositions universally quantified over an empty set are all vacuously true.
Statements with always and never are universally quantified over some set of events. If that set is empty it leads to vacuous truths.
"Every time I've seen a crow, it has always been white" is vacuously true if I've never seen a crow. I.e. the set of crows I've seen is empty, and consequently is a true statement that they're all white.
> A complete stranger who has nothing whatsoever to do with you, who has never tried to do anything for you, nor has been expected to, has never disappointed you. They've also never failed to disappoint you, because they have not failed in any regard whatsoever.
Nobody who uses the phrase ever means it in this way. The point of using the statement is to convey that you are familiar with the person’s history.
As another commenter has already pointed out, “has never failed to disappoint” is not the same statement as “never fails to disappoint”. The habitual present can’t refer to empty sets, as it is only used to refer to repeated actions.
> Nobody who uses the phrase ever means it in this way.
That is true. Outside of formal logic situations, deliberately uttered vacuous truths are only ever used by nerds to be clever, or for sarcasm, or insult and such.
Someone habitually using "never fails to disappoint" intended as a compliment has somehow latched onto an incorrect idiom; they likely intend something slightly funny like "never manages to disappoint" (tries hard to disappoint, but never does, due to being so good!). Or maybe it's supposed to be a deliberately funny mixup of "never fails" and "never disappoints".
> A complete stranger who has nothing whatsoever to do with you, who has never tried to do anything for you, nor has been expected to, has never disappointed you. They've also never failed to disappoint you, because they have not failed in any regard whatsoever.
