double negatives

[dinsdale]

why are double negative phrases so popular, like im not going nowhere and i dont know nothing, which must logicaly mean i know somehing and im going somewhere

[Quizmonster]

Usually repeating something serves to emphasise it, so perhaps these users imagine that's what they're doing. They fail to realise that using a double negative has an 'oppositing' effect. Of course, it is very common in everyday speech, so it isn't too surprising that children pick it up and use it themselves ever after.

[omblod]

A friend of mine studied Italian and English at university and told me that double negatives are perfectly acceptable in Italian. He also told me a story about an English lecture where the lecturer said that a double negative can mean a positive but there is no combination of positives in English that mean a negative. At that point, a voice from the back of the lecture theatre said, "Yeah, riiight!"

[bernardo]

Double negatives are fairly common in other languages, and are often idiomatically correct. (An idiom being a type of usage where the intended meaning is different from the logical meaning).

[Quizmonster]

I should perhaps have mentioned in my earlier response that, until around the 17th century, double negatives were perfectly acceptable in English usage. After all, there "ain't not never no" doubt as to what the speaker actually means! Chaucer and Shakespeare happily used them, but now they're taken as a sign of a poor education.

They may be deliberately used in one way for effect, however, even today. For example, someone may say: "I'm not entirely dissatisfied" to mean "I'm happy enough."

[Ouisch]

By definition, though, a double negative ends up being a positive. So the person who says "I'm not going nowhere" is actually going somewhere, though I don't think that's what the speaker intended to say.

[MissCommando]

People who use double negatives drive me mad and it makes them sound really thick! When I was at school, a naughty kid was supposed to do work but he didn't do a thing but he said "I didn't do nothing, Miss" and the teacher said "That's great!" and he looked so confused, lol. There are so many ppl who don't understand double negatives!

[IndieSinger]

An English teacher said to me once, "... so if you can finish off any outstanding work..." and I said, "But Sir, all my work is outstanding..."

He didn't get it.

[New Forester]

A couple of people have said that a double negative must mean a positive "logically" or "by definition". This is true, but only if you (arbitrarily) decide that positives and negatives reverse each other. Such a decision is indeed logical -- however, an arbitrary decision to allow additional negatives to add to the effect is equally logical. It's just different logic.

[gazzawazza]

I think that most people who do use double negatives don't actually realise that they're being grammatically incorrect.

However, this question does remind me of a story told to me by an ex-workmate, involving a school caretaker back in the early '70s.

The caretaker had been told off by a PE teacher for having put out certain pieces of gymn equipment, when in fact the teacher insisted he'd previously told the caretaker the class would not be needing it as they would not be doing any PE that day.

As the not undisgruntled caretaker stormed off jingling his keys,(note the intended triple? negative?)he was distinctly heard to mutter... "Nobody never told me nothing about nobody not doing no games."

I still can't figure out to this day if he said what he had intended to say!!!