{"id":73828,"date":"2020-04-06T10:32:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T10:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/?p=73828"},"modified":"2020-04-06T10:32:14","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T10:32:14","slug":"double-negatives-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/double-negatives-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Double Negatives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In some languages, a negative word like\u00a0<b>nothing, nobody<\/b>\u00a0or<b>\u00a0never<\/b>\u00a0has to be used with a negative verb. In English, these words are themselves enough to give a negative meaning. It is not necessary to use\u00a0<b>not<\/b>\u00a0with these words.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I opened the door, but I saw\u00a0<b>nothing<\/b>. (NOT I opened the door, but I\u00a0<b>did not<\/b>\u00a0see\u00a0<b>nothing<\/b>.)<\/li>\n<li>You\u00a0<b>never<\/b>\u00a0understand me. (NOT You\u00a0<b>don\u2019t never\u00a0<\/b>understand me.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Nobody or not anybody<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><b>Nobody\u00a0<\/b>and\u00a0<b>not anybody\u00a0<\/b>have similar meanings.\u00a0<b>Nobody<\/b>\u00a0is more emphatic than\u00a0<b>not anybody<\/b>. In the same way,\u00a0<b>nothing<\/b>\u00a0is more emphatic than\u00a0<b>not anything<\/b>. Note that the words\u00a0<b>anybody, anything, ever<\/b>\u00a0etc need to be used with\u00a0<b>not<\/b>\u00a0to give a negative meaning.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I opened the door, but I saw\u00a0<b>nothing<\/b>. OR I opened the door, but I\u00a0<b>didn\u2019t<\/b>\u00a0see\u00a0<b>anything<\/b>. (NOT I opened the door, but I saw anything.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Not anybody, not anything\u00a0<\/b>etc, cannot be used at the beginning of a clause. Instead we use\u00a0<b>nobody, nothing<\/b>\u00a0etc.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Nothing<\/b>\u00a0happened. (NOT Not anything happened.)<\/li>\n<li><b>Nobody\u00a0<\/b>came. (NOT Not anybody came.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Double negatives<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><b>Double negatives<\/b>\u00a0are normal in informal English. These are constructions in which two or more negative words occur in a single clause.<\/p>\n<p>Examples are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I\u00a0<b>didn\u2019t<\/b>\u00a0see\u00a0<b>nobody<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li>He\u00a0<b>didn\u2019t\u00a0<\/b>say\u00a0<b>nothing<\/b>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Although double negatives are common, they are not regarded as standard. Note that a double negative is not equivalent to a positive. For example, the sentence \u2018I didn\u2019t hear nothing\u2019 does not mean that \u2018I heard something\u2019. It is merely a non-standard way of saying \u2018I didn\u2019t hear anything\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In some languages, a negative word like\u00a0nothing, nobody\u00a0or\u00a0never\u00a0has to be used with a negative verb. In English, these words are themselves enough to give a negative meaning. It is not necessary to use\u00a0not\u00a0with these&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[1425,1424,211],"class_list":["post-73828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar","tag-double-negative","tag-double-negatives","tag-negatives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73829,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73828\/revisions\/73829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perfectyourenglish.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}