[Python-Dev] PEP: Consolidating names and classes in the `unittest` module (updated 2008-07-15)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Ben Finney writes:

 > This "fail is a negative word" has already been rebutted, by native
 > speakers of English.

Not successfully, it hasn't.  Steven d'Aprano describes one style of
testing as "the test passes if it fails to fail in each of a sequence
of cases."  That is perfectly good English, which makes no sense if
"fail" completely lacks the semantics of negation.  The intuition that
"fail" is a negative word is thus well-founded in standard usage.

By the way, a native speaker is a person who has no need to understand
how his language works; he just uses it.  Being a native speaker
doesn't qualify one as an authority on her language.