LL-L "Syntax" 2002.12.16 (08) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: Polly Christensen <Polly.Christensen at colorado.edu>
Subject: Double negatives

RE: mr. Ross' comments (below).

I remember my father and his brother---two old Frisian
Sylters---discussing an old childhood friend of theirs who had just
died. My uncle said,  "Ah, ja, Deshe. We will never see him, no more."

Indeed, the double negative sometimes means a lot more.


"       In both American and British English, the double negative is
considered both ungrammatical, unsymantical, and substandard.
Be that so, and I am a teacher of English and speak, read, and write one
other language, Farci (Persian).

         But that was not always so.  Albert C. Baugh, in his History of the
English Language, says that for a long time in the development of our
language,  the double negative was common, and usage was permitted.  In
fact, he states, it was used to make a stronger nagative.  So Shakespeare
could say, "Thou hast spoken no word all this while - nor understood none
neither; I know not, nor I greatly care not; nor this is not my nose
neither. First he denied you had in him no right; My father hath no child
but I, nor none is like to have; Nor never none shall mistress be of it,
save I alone."
         It is a pity, even though I will stipulate that it is symantically
incorrect as well as grammatical,  that we have lost so useful an intensive
in the name of correctness.  The double negative nowadays is considered
low-class and uneducated, and is surely confined to the slightly educated.
But every now and then, when I am addressing a folk music crowd, I love to
fall into the colorful colloquial dialect of my Scotch-Irish ancestors (or
Scots-Irish as it is said today), and use an expression such as, " I ain't
got no haints in my house!"
         One thing that a student of language and even a professional should
keep in mind is that the prescriptive grammar and syntax of today would not
have flown more that two-hundred years ago.  Language is a self-repairing
animal, and will develop in its own direction, regardless of authorotative
convention, and edicts.
          Surely, the only thing that authority can do to affect a language
is to destroy it as exhibited by what has happened to Frisian and Gaelic and
many other languages over the earth.  By destroy, I mean kill.  Gaelic is
barely alive, has almost no change, as is Frisian.  It can only be preserved
in its present state unless its use is encouraged in Scotland and Ireland,
as well as the Welsh.  I wonder how many Brits still speak their native
tongue other that the Scottish, Irish, and Welsh Celts."
--
Polly Christensen
Senior Designer
Publications and Creative Services
University Communications
University of Colorado-Boulder

phone:  303.492.8087
fax:  303.492.7828
e-mail:  polly.christensen at colorado.edu

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From: rossmay <rossmay at bellsouth.net>
Subject: LL-L "Syntax" 2002.12.16 (06) [E]

Gabrielle, please give me an example of a "double positive" in a sentence.
I am very interested.

[Harlan May]

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