No, No Double Negatives (But Yes, Yes Literacy!)
We’ve all heard that writers should never use double negatives. I imagine that prohibition came about when the word ain’t became more popular.
For example, if you said, “I ain’t got no toothpaste,” or even “I don’t have no toothpaste,” some wise person would say, “Ah, but that means you do have toothpaste. You do not have no toothpaste, so you must have some toothpaste.”
When researching this subject, I discovered that grammatically suspect double negatives often arise when a writer or speaker is using an incorrect adjective or adverb that contains some variation of no. An easy fix is to use the correct word, which, not ironically, does not contain no and most likely, instead, contains some variation of any. For example,
Incorrect: They didn’t give me no food.
Correct: They didn’t give me any food.
Incorrect: We haven’t gone nowhere.
Correct: We haven’t gone anywhere.
Incorrect: He didn’t do nothing.
Correct: He didn’t do anything.
Warning: Sometimes, a writer uses the incorrect examples above to reveal regionalism or to emphasize the negativity of something. Remember that it’s all about context!
Sometimes, we embrace the double negative to make a point or to skirt a sensitive topic. For example:
I’m not not happy. (This means I happy, or at least as happy as possible at the moment.)
She has no sense of how not to be a braggart. (She definitely is a braggart.)
He is not unlikeable. (He is, indeed, kind of likeable.)
Those double negatives actually mean what they say. Like a double negative in math, they make a positive.
Last Thursday, October 9, I was one of the guest authors invited to take part in a Quizzo table at a fundraiser for the Delco Literacy Council. Check out the right side of the presentation board.
What a great organization and a fun night. Congrats to the champions of adult literacy!
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