  While these appear fully contradictory, that diagnosis relies on the status of S is not not P as an instance of ¬(¬(S is P)) within a logic employing a robust Law of Double Negation. Arguably, however, in each of these attestations, the inner negation—not brown, not punk, not healthy, and even not-raining—can be viewed as a coerced or virtual contrary, in which case the two negations do not fully cancel out. Thus, just as not impossible fails to reduce to possible, not not classical is distinct from classical, and no actual violation of LNC is ultimately condoned. But, as on Grice’s (1989) analysis of irony and tautology, it is the recognition of the apparent contradiction that the speaker exploits to generate the higher-order coherence of the message.