LondonJohn
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- May 12, 2010
- Messages
- 20,779
So, in respect of double negatives having the opposite effect in English, this does follow logic in that you avoid repeating yourself. If you repeat yourself, you've cancelled out what you have just said. For example, 'I do not have no bananas'.
Oh I missed this doozy at first read!
You're genuinely unware that a) it's perfectly grammatically-acceptable (and stylistically-acceptable as well) to use double negatives in English, and b) the meaning conveyed by a double negative can most certainly be different and distinguishable from the single positive? Wow.
For example:
Person A: Dave has no idea about the Syrian conflict.
Person B: Dave does not have no idea about the Syrian conflict: in fact, he just completed a doctoral thesis on that very subject.
And note that the meaning conveyed by Person B's first clause is different from: "Dave has an idea (or even "some idea") about the Syrian conflict"
Fortunately I went to school in a tiny mud hut in Papua New Guinea where my English teacher was the son of a local tribal warlord who had once been taught three English sentences by a passing missionary. What's more, I was top of my class and always scored 176% in my English exams.