Consider the slight difference between the two following sentences:
Do you love her?
Don't you love her?
The first is a mere question that requires an answer — yes or no. The second implies surprise. The asker would assume that he does love her, but has some (indirect) evidence for the contrary and is expressing his surprise with a negative interrogative question.
Now, the same difference is between:
Have you ever thought...?
which is just a question with no special implication of surprise, and
Have you never thought...?
which implies that the person who's asking expects one to have thought about it.
Using never in an interrogative question makes it negative-interrogative, e.g. "Aren't you...?" "Didn't he...?" "Won't they...?" etc.
Ah, Negative Polarity again.
(BTW, I am informed that there is now an NPI tag, which anyone is allowed to use to mark questions with. Feel free.)
Whenever you see a negative (like never) in a sentence, you know you've got trouble. Especially if you see more than one, or if there's a modal in the sentence as well. Luckily, that's not the case here.
First, NPIs. The word ever means at any time, i.e, *anywhen. But people don't say *anywhen (the asterisk means it's ungrammatical); they say ever instead, the same way they don't say *all two,
but rather say both instead.
The interesting thing about the word ever is that it's a Negative Polarity Item (NPI), like any; indeed, it's just a variant of any. NPIs can't occur outside a negative context, which is why it sounds so awful to say
That's why there's a not in
- I have not ever been there.
Never is just a contraction of not ever, the same way none is a contraction for not one.
Both of those are fine, because they're negative. One is a contraction of the other, so there's no meaning difference.
As for such a thing, it's an idiom, in this case a pretty frozen one, which indicates surprise at the extreme nature of whatever the "thing" is sposta be. So you get to express surprised indignation at the same time you deny experience of extremes. Pretty useful phrase.
Best Answer
In “there has never yet been…” the word “yet” has no function except emphasis; try replacing it… In “… no man ever yet did…” the word “yet” has no function except emphasis. However, the phrase would almost never be used except in a question, as for instance “Has there ever yet been such an example?” “… yet…” makes no difference unless it is a more relaxed version, as in “Has there yet been such an example?”
Also, the difference is either between two or among any more than two options.