Two stories about Sidney Morgenbesser from a Christopher Hitchens piece in the February 2004 issue of Vanity Fair (not online - hat tip: Gur Hirshberg):
Many and various are the New York tales that are told of Professor Sidney Morgenbesser. During a conference of linguistic philosophers at Columbia University, he interrupted the pompous J. L. Austin, who was saying that while many double negatives express a positive - as in "not unattractive" - there is no example in English of a double positive expressing a negative. Morgenbesser's interjection took the form of the two words "Yeah, yeah."... On another occasion, he put his pipe in his mouth as he was ascending the subway steps. A policeman approached and told him that there was no smoking on the subway. Morgenbesser explained - pointed out might be a better term - that he was leaving the subway, not entering it, and had not yet lit up. The cop repeated his injunction. Morgenbesser repeated his observation. After a few such exchanges, the cop saw he was beaten and fell back on the oldest standby of enfeebled authority: "If I let you do it, I'd have to let everyone do it." To this the old philosopher replied, "Who do you think you are - Kant?" His last word was misconstrued, and the whole question of the categorical imperative had to be hashed out down at the precinct house. Morgenbesser walked.I've known the first of these two stories for many years, since it was told me by a philosopher colleague. Versions of it have also been blogged before (see here and here.) But the second one is new to me.