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I thought it might be fun to have a place to collect flagrant overnegations seen or imagined, now that we have goofy's clearcut & quotable clarification of double negatives, to wit:
Here's one I spotted this morning in a report on a recent Scott Walker interview: Romney recently confirmed he would not enact a ban on insurance discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions if elected president. | ||
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I don't see that that is overnegation. It requires careful reading, but the meaning is clear. It could possibly have been phrased more simply, though. For instance, the writer could have said, Romney recently denied he would enact a ban ... Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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Here's one from a station ID slogan by Dave, a cable and satellite channel here.
An announcer speaks the words with an upward inflection at the end, which makes it sound interrogative, but the sentence on screen has no question mark, just a stop at the end. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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Doesn't it mean "hit"? How about "Romeny says he won't ban..."? | ||
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There are many examples where is clearly supposed to mean "miss", For instance:
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Obviously illogical, said Mr. Spock. | ||
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There's no reason to expect language to be logical. Having said that, in standard English two negatives multiply into a positive, which is why overnegation is a mistake. But I think it's interesting that I often don't notice overnegations at first. As Mark Liberman says, why are negations so easy to fail to miss?This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy, | |||
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Ah, arnie. You just have to know Scott Walker to know that it's completely illogical.  | |||
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Yes I see that my 'Romney recently confirmed..' quote is not 'overnegation', because the pluses & minuses add up correctly to express the intended meaning. It's the 'careful reading' I don't like, feels like I'm doing a math problem instead of reading. Perhaps it quaifies as 'too dang much negation.' Here's my re-write: Romney recently confirmed he's fine with denying insurance to those with pre-existing conditions. | |||
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Of course, apart from its overnegation, the Romney quote is a typical example of politician-speak - designed to confuse rather than clarify. And I wonder how he would feel if it were him or one of his loved ones who was unable to get insurance because of some pre-exixting condition? Thank goodness I live in England, where the NHS will treat me, without charge, for as long as I live, regardless of any physical conditions I might have, pre-existing or acquired Richard English | |||
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is certainly an example of confusing negation because without knowing anything about Romney it's impossible to know if he means what he says or has made an error. Being able to decide if he is for or against insurance discrimination relies on actually already knowing the answer. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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It's classic case of a politician making a statement that causes the listener to mistakenly think he's on their side. | ||
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Oh, this political double-speak is really very simple! It was described by a German, Max Weber, who called it the protestant work ethic,invented by a French religious zealot, Jean Cauvin, went to England where they started calling him John Calvin, ended up in both England and Scotland, then the whole lot of them got deported to the American colonies, where they started "speaking in tongues in church, then talking that same gibberish in public. There, very simple! So, y'see, it's all the fault of the English! If you'd shot the lot of them instead of deporting them, we'd have much less to complain about.  It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti | |||
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Hold on... in what way is this sentence an example of a politician trying to confuse us with double-speak? This sentence was written by a journalist! We don't know what the politician's actual words were! | |||
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Basicaslly, that's what he said. The journalist appears to have merely omitted the quotes since part is a paraphrase.. | ||
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How do you know? | |||
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But why is that journalist paraphrasing something that he said at another time? There's also not any indication of the question he was asked (if there was one). He might have been asked something like "Can you confirm you would not enact a ban on insurance discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions if elected president?" If he answered "Yes" it would have been a journalist who produced the convoluted sentence. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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Bain Capitol? The French word for "bath" is bain. Invest with Mitt and end up under water. It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti | |||
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Romney would like to have a Bain Capitol to work in but he worked for Bain Capital. | ||
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Bethree, you have said it perfectly. That is exactly why I don't like complicated double negatives. Interestingly, though, just the other day I used an uncomplicated one (I don't recall exactly what it was) for emphasis so sometimes I think double negatives can be helpful. | |||
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But which kind of double negative? If we're going to talk about this, why not be specific? | |||
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I'll be honest, I don't find those categories helpful so I haven't focused on them. I think about double negatives as complicated (such as the above one with several negatives) or more simple. The latter ones I find can add emphasis, such as: "That is not an uncommon nursing major." That is somewhat different from: "That is a common nursing major." However, since you asked about the categories, here are my thoughts. I didn't remember specifically what I said (above post), but it likely was from your first category. The second category I never use and don't see used much. The third category is probably the one that I not uncommonly (ha!) find complex and therefore hard to figure out.This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh, | |||
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I don't find it helpful to lump all double negatives together when there are at least three different kinds, each with a distinct meaning and usage. Anyway, here's another overnegation, from Hemingway's A Moveable Feast: This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy, | |||
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I don't find this writing all the easy to read - but I only saw one double negative - which didn't seem excessive to me. Richard English | |||
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It's hard to tell with just this much text. However, I can't even find one double negative. What am I missing? | |||
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I have bolded the bit in question. It's overnegation - "not working" should be "working". I don't know about excessive, but it is a mistake. And isn't it interesting that it doesn't seem wrong on first reading? | |||
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That does depend on context again. Maybe the narrator was lazy and preferred doing nothing to working? He might have felt that being a wage slave was wasting his life... Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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Hemingway is fed up with having to babysit Scott Fitzgerald. He feels like he is wasting his life. He misses working. But if that passage doesn't give you enough context, read the Language Log post I linked to which provides more context. | |||
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This is the double negative I spotted and it seems fine to me. Hemingway is saying that he is missing the leisure he had previously had when he wasn't working; it seems a perfectly reasonable way of phrasing this concept. He could have been missing working, whilst he was retired; here he is missing not working because he is presumably no longer retired. I don't believe he was missing working - although without reading the full passage I can't say whether the double negative was intended or simply a mistake. As I wrote earlier, these kinds of double negatives are common enough in UK English. Richard English | |||
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He's not working. He's traveling with Fitzgerald from Paris to Lyon and back. If I felt the death loneliness that comes at the end of every day that is wasted, I would miss working. But I guess that's just me. Even more context: read the whole chapter. | |||
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Yes, I agree, goofy. That is overnegation. As you say, it doesn't seem wrong on first reading. Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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If he is working, then the sense of the sentence is wrong and the word "not" is incorrect. Having said which, although the sentence does not say what he meant it to say, and in that sense there is a mistake, grammatically it is fine. Richard English | |||
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That's the whole point. Over-negation is rarely grammatically wrong in the sense that it leads to a sentence outside the normal grammatical rules of English. The problem with it can be that without knowing what the author intended to mean it can be impossible to work out if the sentence says what was intended or, as is the case here, the opposite of what was intended. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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How about this one? Bob should recognise it:
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money." Samuel Johnson. | |||
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If that's what wss meant, Richard is right that it was understandable, though I don't see any double negative at all in that case. If goofy is right, there clearly is overnegation. I will have to read the chapter. Arnie, yours is impossible...and I know what it's from too! | |||
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This is the double negative - although it's not all that blatant. "Missed" is a negative word in that it expresses a negative concept - a failure to hit, say. "Not" is also a negative word and thus the two words together are a double negative - which way or may not be correct, depending on the concept being expressed. "I enjoyed not working" is a single negative; "I didn't enjoy not working is a double negative. Richard English | |||
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So, following your logic, Richard, what would "I didn't miss not working" be? Is it a triple negative? Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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I would think it's a triple negative, yes. It means that the writer is glad to be working again after a period of not working. Of course, every time you add a negative the sentence gets harder to follow. Richard English | |||
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I wouldn't consider "miss" to be included in a "double negative" connotation, thus the misunderstanding. | |||
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In Jennifer Stewart's newsletter today - http://www.write101.com the following phrase appears: "...the US government declaration offers no conclusive proof to deny the existence of mermaids either...". Would not the sentence, " "We can't be sure whether or not mermaids exist" have been both more elegant and more readily understandable? Richard English | |||
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Hmm, usually I agree with double negatives making things more cloudy, but I kinda like it in this instance. | |||
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Language Log:
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Good grief. As Geoff Pullum puts it,
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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objection, your honor, on the grounds of incomprehensibilty! | |||
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Goofy, that's just what I mean about the confusion. In that instance, I would have likely been held in contempt of court for refusing to answer that "yes" or "no" question. I did love Pullum's explanation, though. That Stephen Lord is one smart man to answer the question so quickly. I would have had to have gone through Pullum's explanation in my mind. | |||
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Yeah, I know, it is confusing. It's too many negatives for our brains to handle. But surely you can see that it is something completely different from, say "I didn't see nothing." | |||
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Why doesn't it work? | |||
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