The other night, former pitcher Dennis Eckersley served as color man for the Red Sox game. During the game he was discussing a potential arm problem for a Red Sox player.

He said, "I wouldn't be surprised if it's not bothering hm."

Huh? How do you parse that one?

You parse it as if it said

"I wouldn't be surprised if it's bothering him."

Language Log has over the years had quite a lot to say about under- and over-negation.

Here's one.

Not being any kind of sports fan, I wasn't sure what a color man was so I Googled it.

I found out in the first one on the list. And I did quite enjoy the article.

It seems it's the person employed to make moronic comments. My opinion of sport remains unchanged.

I seem to remember that Fowler classed constructions like "I shouldn't wonder if it didn't rain" amongst the "sturdy indefensibles". They've certainly been remarked upon for a long time.

To me they're just an example of sloppy thinking. Why put an unnecessary (and potentially confusing) negative in the subordinate clause when the meaning is exactly the same without it?

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
Not being any kind of sports fan, I wasn't sure what a color man was so I Googled it.

I found out in the first one on the list. And I did quite enjoy the article.

It seems it's the person employed to make moronic comments. My opinion of sport remains unchanged.

What are they called in the UK, then? I've heard the term "expert summarizer", but I don't know if that's standard.

Couldn't tell you. I never watch sport. I don't know a tennis bat from cricket stick.

quote:

Originally posted by Guy Barry:
I seem to remember that Fowler classed constructions like "I shouldn't wonder if it didn't rain" amongst the "sturdy indefensibles". They've certainly been remarked upon for a long time.

According to MWDEU, the use of a negative to make an understatement is a rhetorical device called litotes. As in not bad, not unlikely or

quote:

Fanny looked on and listened, not unamused to observe the selfishness which, more or less disguised, seemed to govern them all
- Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

MWDEU says that some people get annoyed by this.

But MWDEU makes no mention of something like "I wouldn't be surprised if it's not bothering him," where you have two clauses that are both negative. I use this sort of thing a lot.

quote:

What are they called in the UK, then?

I've heard "expert summarizer" as well, but the papers seem to call them "pundits".

quote:

You parse it as if it said

"I wouldn't be surprised if it's bothering him."

You all known I can be too literal, so I think Bob is more likely to be right. But here was my take: Since it was a potential arm problem, I thought he was saying he wouldn't be surprised if the arm was not bothering him. I'd need to know the context. However, if the guy was having difficulty throwing, perhaps the commentator thought there was a potential problem that the pitcher didn't know about because his arm wasn't bothering him.

But...Bob's probably right. Never hire me as a translator!

quote:

Originally posted by Proofreader:
He said, "I wouldn't be surprised if it's not bothering hm."

Huh? How do you parse that one?

I would parse it the way Bob parsed it. I don't see the problem.

I wouldn't be surprised (My guess is) if it's not (it isn't) bothering him.

That's what I got, but the comment came about because the pitcher seemed to be having arm trouble. Therefore, that parsing doesn't work

So his arm actually was bothering him? So it should be parsed "I wouldn't be surprised if his arm is bothering him"? So it's a case of overnegation.

It's over-negation but it's EXTREMELY common in normal speech.

I wouldn't think twice (or even once) if I heard someone say

"I wouldn't be surprised if they don't win."

Or "Wouldn't surprise me if it doesn't rain."

I would automatically understand them as having the opposite meaning to the one you get if you try to break them down logically.

I didn't read Bob's first post carefully. I thought he was parsing it as if the two negatives canceled each other out. That's how I would interpret it.

That's the whole point. It's language not logic. Negatives don't always cancel.

There ain't no logic to it.

I know, but I use double negatives to cancel each other out all the time, for instance "I don't believe that such and such didn't happen" etc. So that's how I would interpret Proof's example. But now that I know more context, I think that it makes more sense to interpret it as overnegation.

I don't recall actually hearing overnegation like this. Of course it's possible I hear it all the time but I never notice.

So you haven't heard things like, to choose an example not quite at random, "There ain't no logic to it."

This of course, logically, means that there is some logic to it.

quote:

"There ain't no logic to it."

Well, I've always considered that type of thing more a grammatical flaw.

The more I read these posts, the more I think he meant that the arm was not bothering him. At any rate, the only way to know for sure is to ask him.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
So you haven't heard things like, to choose an example not quite at random, "There ain't no logic to it."

No, hold on, we're getting all confused. There are three different things that use double negatives.

1) the standard English use of two negatives to make a positive, as in "not unlikely" or "I don't believe that X didn't happen" - which means "I believe that X happened."

2) the nonstandard negative concord, as in "There ain't no logic to it", where the two negatives reinforce each other. Of course I've heard this before. Unlike Kalleh I don't think it's a grammatical flaw, it's just nonstandard English.

3) overnegation, like "I wouldn't be surprised if it's not bothering him", where there is one negative too many. This seems to occur in the speech of people who don't have double negative type 2). So I don't think it's the same as 2). This is what I don't recall ever hearing, but I haven't been paying attention for it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

I've always considered that type of thing more a grammatical flaw.

Well, it's ungrammatical in Standard English, but perfectly grammatical in many other varieties of English, including Middle and Old English. The strange thing about it is, that what was once perfectly grammatical in those two other historical varieties of (literate) English was decided to be ungrammatical by some normative grammarians, starting in the 18th century, based on personal preference and somehow bolstered by reference to Latin and some Romance languages, where double negatives must (grammatically) be a positive. In the 19th century and beyond, some normative grammarians tried to "prove" that it must be ungrammatical because it was contrary to logic. As I and others have said over and over, logic has little or nothing to do with grammar.

Well, all I can say is that while logically it means the opposite, a phrase like "I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't rain." is part of my idiolect and indeed part of my regional dialect meaning that rain won't surprise me.

For me 3) in goofy's list is about as common as 1) in goofy's list. While you might think it would lead to confusion in practice it's hardly ever misinterpreted in speech because context and intonation give adequate additional information about what was meant.

I agree that language is not logic. But putting that aside for the moment, 2) and 3) in my list are logical, if you look at the negatives as added instead of multiplied.