"Nothing is better than Aleve." That advertising slogan for the popular pain reliever drew this response from one of my waggish readers: "Nothing is better than Aleve, so I take nothing."

We use and encounter ambiguous phrases and sentences like this every day, often without pausing to consider their dubious logic. Like the slogan for Aleve, many of them involve the expression of a negative sense, indicated by words such as "nothing," "aren't" and "don't."

Bruce Powell of Canton, Conn., for instance, wonders about this common holiday valediction: "If I don't see you, have a Merry Christmas." He writes, "Does that greeting apply only if I don't see you? What about if I do actually see you?" Of course, no one would ever say, "If I DO see you, DON'T have a Merry Christmas," but that's what seems to be implied.

Similarly, many people say, "I really miss not seeing you," which, when you think about it, really means the exact opposite of the intended meaning.

Another reader, K.L. Baldwin of Titusville, Pa., reports hearing characters on TV shows use sentences such as "It usually always does this" and "That often never happens." The adverbs seem to cancel each other out, of course. But the scary thing is, these sentences make an odd kind of sense.

They're similar to some of the baffling pronouncements attributed to Yogi Berra: "If the people don't want to come out to the park, nobody's going to stop them"; "It gets late early out there"; and "I really didn't say everything I said." Though technically these statements are illogical, we get the idea.

Such expressions fall into the category of idioms — constructions that appear to violate some grammatical rule or cannot be understood based solely on the meanings of their individual words.

Children can sometimes expose the illogical nature of idioms by asking about their meanings.

When my daughter, Allison, was about 5, for instance, I told her that one of her friends would be coming over "any minute." I thought she would be happy, but she was disappointed. She took "any minute" literally to mean at any random time — a minute from now, or an hour from now.

A couple of years later, asking Allison about a recent conversation with a friend, I said, "What did Anna have to say?" Allison replied, "Anna didn't HAVE to say anything. She just said what she wanted to say."

But now that Allison is older, that often never happens.

Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Conn., invites your language sightings. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via e-mail to Wordguy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045. To find out more about Rob Kyff and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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