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double negation

Anchie

Senior Member
Serbian
This is a translation of a Croatian message on a bottle of water.
I'd say this is a double negative, but some people say I'm wrong.

"Keep nothing in your life that doesn't have a scent of love."

Here's the photo of the bottle: Snaggy - easy screenshots

What's your take on this?
Last edited:
Yes, it is a double negative:

"Keep nothing in your life that doesn't have a scent of love." = "Keep only those things in your life that have a scent of love." (I wonder what that smells like... πŸ‘ Big Grin :D
)
Yes, it's a double negative, but that's OK. It has a clear and logical meaning as PaulQ has said, and is good English. The more famous quote along the same lines is from William Morris (1834-1896): β€œHave nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
If a double negative can be ok and accepted, how can we know which double negatives to accept and which to reject?
Logic. The does the sentence make sense? Does it (logically) mean what you want it to mean, or what the writer wanted it to mean? In the two cases above, you can take the sentence at face value - it means exactly what it says.

But the sentence: "There isn't nothing in the house that's useful" is illiterate. On the one hand, it has nothing immediately associated with a negative verb, which is redundant. On the other hand, taken literally it's fairly meaningless: "Something in the house is useful". Why would you need to say that?
An example of some double negatives which are not acceptable (bad grammar), as they make no real sense:

I don't know nobody.
I didn't hardly hear what he said.
I ain't (haven't) got no money.
It is very simple - simply ask yourself, "Is this expression an example of litotes?" Litotes - Wikipedia

Litotes is something like "not bad" to mean "good". I get it.

But what about "nothing" and "doesn't have" in the same sentence?

They are both negatives and they don't sound like litotes...
But what about "nothing" and "doesn't have" in the same sentence?
πŸ‘ Confused :confused:
What about it? It's litotes.
They are both negatives and they don't sound like litotes...
...and yet it is litotes! πŸ‘ Smile :)


From Wiki: "In rhetoric, litotes (/ˈlaΙͺtΙ™tiːz/,[1] US /ˈlΙͺtΙ™tiːz/ or /laΙͺˈtoʊtiːz/) is a figure of speech that uses understatement to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, often incorporating double negatives for effect."
But what about "nothing" and "doesn't have" in the same sentence?

They are both negatives and they don't sound like litotes...
If I were to say to you "He doesn't have nothing useful to say in the forum", would you take it to mean he does or he doesn't contribute anything useful? πŸ‘ Wink ;)
I would understand that sentences to mean that he doesn't contribute anything useful.
My mother tongue allows multiple negatives, as many as you wish, and I have no problems with them in a sentence at all.
But we were taught that " a double negation" is a crime in an English sentence.
I understand poetic liberties and that many non-standard structures are accepted for the sake of the effect.
Thus, all double negatives may be interpreted as expressions of freedom.
Where do grammar rules end and where does poetic freedom start? How can we make a distinction?
But we were taught that " a double negation" is a crime in an English sentence.
... and this is a big problem in learning English: students have a belief that everything that is told to them is a "rule" and that there are no exceptions. English is so filled with exceptions that there really are no rules: words are used via context, choice of vocabulary, and syntax to express the precise thought.

(See my signature.)

How can we make a distinction?
We rarely have any problems. πŸ‘ Big Grin :D
Where do grammar rules end and where does poetic freedom start? How can we make a distinction?
The distinction you make is whether the meaning is unclear or not.

In your OP, we correctly interpreted "Keep nothing in your life that doesn't have a scent of love." as being a double negative but with a clear positive meaning. That's poetic freedom.

But in the example I gave in post #10, you, like most people, assigned a negative meaning to the sentence which is the reverse of what the sentence literally says. That's because it was bad grammar. πŸ‘ Smile :)
I see...
Rules are here to be broken for the sake of poetic freedom ...

"Don't keep anything in your life that doesn't have a scent of love". Would this mean the same as "Keep nothing in your life that doesn't have a scent of love."

How do you, native speakers, see these two sentences?
"Don't keep anything in your life that doesn't have a scent of love". Would this mean the same as "Keep nothing in your life that doesn't have a scent of love."

How do you, native speakers, see these two sentences?
Yes: I would construe those as meaning the same thing. I too prefer the "Keep nothing..." from a stylistic point of view, but while it's OK as some sort of motto or advertising slogan, it's not the sort of thing I'd go round saying in the course of ordinary conversation.
Thanks for your useful comments.
Being a grammar nerd, I tend to overlook those artistic nuances...
From now on, I should approach any piece of language both grammatically and artistically .... πŸ‘ Smile :)
As posters have said above, a double negative is correct if you actually mean a double negative.
- Say nothing that you don't want everyone to know. (Correct if you mean: Say only things that you want everyone to know.)

If you mean a single negative, then a double one is wrong (or maybe acceptable in some dialects, but not in standard English).
- Don't say nothing. (Not correct if you mean: Don't say anything. / Say nothing.)
I have one question more:

Some people claim that a double negative can't be found in a compound or complex sentences and that this one:

"Keep nothing in your life that doesn't have a scent of love."

is definitely no example of a double negative.

Please, leave your comments on this.
A double negative is something like "I don't not like ice cream". "Don't" = "do not" so that is "I do not not like ice cream". It is negating the same thing twice. That is what is a "crime in English". A double negative can be fixed by removing both negations: "I like ice cream".

Having two negative words somewhere in a sentence is not a double negative.

"Keep nothing in your life that doesn't have a scent of love."

Here the two negations refer to different things. One modifies "keep" and says which set of things (of two sets) you should keep. The other modifies "does have a scent" and refers to individual items in your life, sorting them into two sets.

Another example: "If he's not a good kisser, don't marry him." That's not a double negative. And it has a different meaning than "If he's a good kisser, marry him". So the sentence fails the double-negative test of "meaning the same if both negatives are removed".

(cross posted with #20)
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