"double negative" (P.S.)

[Laurence Horn]

At 8:10 PM -0500 1/13/08, Laurence Horn wrote:
>At 4:37 PM -0800 1/13/08, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>Saw this yesterday, serendipitously as usual:
>>
>>   2006 Ian McEwan in Robin Headlam Wells & Johnjoe McFadden _
>>(London: Continuum) 41: Their paper...ended with the famously modest
>>conclusion: 'It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing
>>we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism
>>for the genetic material.' 'It has not escaped our notice...' - the
>>drawing-room politesse of the double negative is touchingly
>>transparent. It roughly translates as 'Look at us everybody! We've
>>found the mechanism by which life on earth replicates, we're excited
>>as hell and can't sleep a wink...'
>>
>>   Seems to mean "single negative," unless somebody can reason more deviously.
>
>The implication is that "escaped" is negative in import, although not
>in form, so "has not escaped" is a double negative (the kind that
>does cancel out, not a hypernegation), along the lines of "X is not
>without its charms", a frequently commented on construction.
>
>
(In the good olde days, the Ian McEwans of the world would have
referred to "not escaped our notice" (or "not without") as litotes,
far more elegant (and less ambiguous) a characterization than "double
negative".  O tempora, etc.

LH

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