Double negatives
From Paul Martin Howard <y98...@cpca6.uea.ac.uk>
· alt.ascii-art
· 21 Feb 1999 00:00 · View full thread
· report
Listen up Mr JRO, I will say this only once! > | No, please don't go. <------ correct > | > | No, no please don't go <------ rhythmically interesting, but > | technically incorrect That's not a valid example. The 'no' is an interjection. It doesn't bind lexically with the second clause (beginning 'please'). Therefore: 'no, no, please don't go' is permissible but you need that comma. Also note that however many times you add 'no', it does not affect the meaning. This is a different case to 'not', where a phrase such as 'Please don't not go' means 'Please do go' (but is a pretty ugly construction!). > | I could care less <------- correct (and also most commonly used) > | > | I could not care less <------- incorrect You're totally wrong there. If you couldn't care less then you're at the lowest possible level of caring, i.e. you don't care. If you COULD care less than you obviously do care. Whether it is commonly used does not affect how 'correct' it is. -- Paul GPF University of East Anglia.
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X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f996b,8cb1590a88e22b7c X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public From: Paul Martin Howard <y98...@cpca6.uea.ac.uk> Subject: Double negatives Date: 1999/02/21 Message-ID: <Pin...@cpca4.uea.ac.uk>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 446705815 References: <36c4aada.0@206.103.97.91> <36C...@iNOdirect.ca> <36c5679a.0@206.103.97.91> <36C...@bcpl.net> <36c...@news.tcp.co.uk> <36c637dc.0@206.103.97.91> <36C...@on.spammer> <36c...@news.tcp.co.uk> <36C...@on.spammer> <36c...@news.tcp.co.uk> <36C...@on.spammer> <36c8e01d.0@206.103.97.91> <36C...@on.spammer> <36ca8518.0@206.103.97.91> <36c...@news.vossnet.net> X-Sender: y98...@cpca4.uea.ac.uk Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Organization: University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk, NR47TJ, UK Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art
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