![]() Whilst in “standard” English they’ve dropped out of use, they can still be heard in a number of modern dialects from AAVE to Norfolk. double negatives and usageĭouble negatives were common In Old English and Middle English. So the next time someone talks about double negatives and brings math into it, you can safely ignore them. To refute the math = grammar argument you can simply point out that adding two negative numbers does not make them positive so why not adopt that rule for double negatives? The logic of applying math to grammar is a little dubious to say the least. To justify this stance, they say that in math two negatives make a positive, for example: Generally, double negatives are frowned upon as a sign of poor literacy and lots of people don’t like them because they think it sounds uneducated and working class. Simply put, a Double Negative is when you use a negative form of the verb along with a negative quantifier (see below for the most common quantifiers). This article addresses both those concerns. Answering "no" would would mean "I am coming".A lot of people don’t like Double Negatives and quite a number of people aren’t sure what they are. ![]() In other languages where they don't employ this negative concord, like Japanese for example, the way to respond to "you're not coming" would be "yes, I am not coming". Instead, "no" creates negative concord, maintaining the negation of the question. For example, in response to negative questions:Įssentially, when someone asks a negative question, the answer of "no" does not yield the positive, i.e. Side note: even negative concord exists in Standard English in certain cases. (However, as I said, even your awkward example is not ungrammatical in Standard English.) I think everyone would agree that these are common Standard English constructions. When I see someone in trouble, I can't not help. Other double negations sound perfectly fluid, for example: Your particular example might be a bit awkward, but that is just because you wrote an awkward sentence, not because double negatives are bad. two negatives yielding a positive, which is what you appear to be talking about.(It is used in a number of English dialects, as well as in certain informal registers in most dialects.) When people say "double negatives are not part of Standard English", they are talking about negative concord. negative concord, which is standard in Spanish, French, and many other languages, where negation amplifies with the addition of more negative words (or they are simply required).There are two types of double negative, and I think it is important to recognize the difference between the two. The prefixes un- and im-/in- are usually considered negatives, as are hardly and many others bad is sometimes considered a negative word, sometimes not, etc. The boundary between negations and other kinds of words is by no means sharp. ![]() The majority will probably use this in speech and informal writing, where it is perfectly acceptable, but not elsewhere. ![]() Double not is a special case: it is felt to be even more redundant than other double negatives and sounds rather colloquial. Here the word not is used twice, once in contracted form ( don't) and once in full, to express a weak positive. It expresses a strong positive, though without irony. This is the rhetorical double negative, often considered a form of litotes. Other people restrict the term to those negations that express a strong positive through an apparently weak positive, in a mildly ironical manner, as in this example (3).Ĥ.) Never a day goes by that I do not miss her. Sometimes any double negative with a positive meaning is considered a litotes, including the unremarkable example 2 above. This is a figure of speech called litotes: the double negative (if that's what it is) is used to express a strong positive. Here the double negative expresses a weak positive, a very common construction.ģ.) Not bad, not bad at all! You have just saved her life, young man. If their sum is supposed to be positive, it is generally acceptable in all registers:Ģ.) I suppose that is not impossible.This usage is frowned upon by many people even if used in speech, unless ironically.ġ.) I don't see nothing. If their sum is supposed to be negative, double negatives are very informal or slang in modern English.Double negatives can be perfectly fine in English.
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