Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomisimo
One interesting note is that double negation in English was acceptable and used commonly until prescriptive grammarians wrote against it in the 18th century. For example Chaucer makes extensive use of double (and even triple) negatives in his writing. Today, double negatives are not considered "correct", especially for written English, but are somewhat accepted in spoken English, especially in humorous and informal usage. Double negatives are more extensively used in some dialects of English than in others.
According to what I have found, these are considered the negative words in English: barely, hardly, neither, no, no one, nobody, none, not, nothing, nowhere, scarcely. |
In England if you use a double negative, you might be told you sound 'like an Essex man'.
And one more thing, children often use double negatives when learning to speak, which as somebody mentioned in another thread, is indicative of 'illogical aspects' within our linguistic systems.
I know lots of bilingual children (like many of you, I imagine) and I find each and everyone of them, fascinating.
An anecdote: When my eldest son was around two, he would call his Dad after going to the toilet and say: Papá, límpiame el botón.I'll leave the guessing to you guys, but I thought it was hysterical.
