A serious petition for replacing the word “No” with “Not Yes” has become a popular joke with negative forms of things, people and animals.
In mid-May to the online petition site Change.org appeared a call to change a little English: the author Ewan Maloney (Ewan Maloney) suggested that instead of the word «No» ( «No») use fictitious negative form of the word «Yes» ( «Yes») – “Yesn’t” (“Not Yes”).
It is not known what Maloney wanted to achieve with his demand. But on May 15, a screenshot of the petition was published in one of the largest sections of Reddit – r / me_irl. One of the commentators predicted the fate of the proposal: “No one will sign it, except that the creator himself.”
But the recording with the screenshot became popular on Reddit, and by May 22 it was signed by almost 40 thousand people. For a few days the word “Yesn’t” turned into an internal joke of the me_irl section: users really started using it instead of the word “No”, and also concluded that other words can be formed in a similar way.
So, for example, there were “Not a dog” instead of “Cat” and “No hello” instead of “Bye.”
— èric (ᶜᵃˡᵖᵉ) (@eqstt) 19 May 2018
“A dog is not a dog”
me_irl https://t.co/4FoYJkIjcs pic.twitter.com/Zwa3wPVFp9
— me irl (@ItMeIRL) 16 May 2018
“When the government fools you, you can not just change the word:” No yes, God, please do not daaaaaaa “[Sending to the memo from the TV series” Office “]”
— non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) 21 May 2018
“Not yet hello”
me irl https://t.co/g6SmGdPYYm pic.twitter.com/vnDvaxCCmB
— me irl (@ItMeIRL) 20 May 2018
“Spain is not Spain (Catalonia is singled out, which wants to secede from the country)”
me irl https://t.co/P4BDB1ChEh pic.twitter.com/r66xUUHVq7
— me irl (@ItMeIRL) 19 May 2018
“I’m in real life – not you in real life”
Soon the meme went beyond Reddit and became popular in social networks.
No is a word. Yesn't is also a word. #SortOf https://t.co/TB9h2xqMWv
— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom) 19 May 2018
“No” is the word. “Not yes” is also a word ”
We will be announcing our decision on 'yesn't' at 4:20 ET.
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) 18 May 2018
“We will announce our decision on the word” Not Yes “at 4:20.”