We don’t need no education

There is an idea out there that two negatives make a positive, both in math and in language.

This notion about English negation dates back to grammars of the 18th century; from there it got picked up in subsequent grammars to become something like a fact.

Here’s the problem: It’s just not true.

When Mick Jagger sings, “I can’t get no satisfaction,” we know that he does not mean he is satisfied. No one would interpret that lyric that way.

English has a long history of using double or multiple negation, as do many languages around the world. The Old English poem Beowulf uses multiple negation. Chaucer uses multiple negation. And you can find double negation in Shakespeare’s time.

At some point, the standard variety of English started moving toward single negation. But many, many varieties of English still use double negation as do many other languages. For example, a French speaker will say, “Je ne sais pas” to tell someone, “I don’t know.” The “ne” and the “pas” are both negative markers. They do not cancel each other out.

In much the same way, if you say in English, “I don’t get tired,” and “I don’t never get tired,” you are communicating the message that “tiredness is not my thing.”

Cancelation policy

Let’s talk about this idea that the two negatives cancel each other out. People often refer to math and will say, “Well, in math if you multiply two negatives you get a positive.”

This is true.

And I have two responses to this. The first is: Language is not math. The second is: Fine, let’s do math.

It is true that in math if you multiply two negatives you get a positive. But if you add two negatives, what do you get? A bigger negative. So even if you want to do math, it’s possible to see how two negatives do not cancel each other out.

Now, there are instances where two negatives are put directly in opposition to each other. For example: “I am not unhappy.” Those two negative elements (“not” and “un-“) are oppositional, but I do have to note that they don’t exactly cancel each other out. When I say, “I am not unhappy,” that is not the same thing as saying, “I am happy.” I would say, at best, it means “I am neutral. I am not unhappy, but I’m certainly far from happy.”

I hope this brief history of double negation helps you see why in language two negatives don’t necessarily make a positive. English has a long history with this construction, which continues to flourish in several languages, including many varieties of English, around the world.

 
 
This video appears courtesy of LSA Today. Curzan’s observations on language also can be heard on the Michigan Radio program “That’s What They Say.”