| 词组 | double negative |
| 释义 | double negative Otto Jespersen, in Negation in English and Other Languages (1917), has an interesting observation. He notes that negation in a sentence is very important logically but that it is often formally unimportant in the structure of the sentence—in many instances in English it is marked by no more than an unstressed particle like old ne or modern -n't. Hence, there has long been a tendency to strengthen the negative idea by adding more negative elements to the sentence. This tendency is perhaps properly called multiple negation, but it is usually referred to in modern handbooks and commentaries as the double negative. The double negative functions in two ways in present-day English: as an emphatic negative, and as an unem-phatic positive. We will examine each of these separately. 1. Emphatic negative. The multiple negative for emphasis or reinforcement of the negative idea of a sentence is very old, going back much farther than Chaucer, whose description of his knight is often given as an example: • He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde In al his lyf unto no maner wight—General Prologue, The Canterbury Tales, ca.1387 The construction was common at least through Shakespeare's time: • ... they could not find no more forage—Lord Berners, translation of Froissart's Chronicles, 1523 • And that no woman has; nor never none Shall mistress be of it—Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, 1602 (in Strang 1970) • She cannot love, Nor take no shape nor project of affection—Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 1599 (in Lowth 1762) The more effusive multiple negatives seem to have gone out of literary favor some time after Shakespeare, but the double negative—like Lord Berners'—kept in use: • QUACK. ... your process is so new that we do not know but it may succeed. HORNER. Not so new neither; probatum est, doctor. —William Wycherly, The Country Wife, 1675 • I cannot by no means allow him, that this argument must prove.... —Richard Bentley, Dissertation on Epistles of Phalaris, 1699 (in Lowth 1762) • ... lost no time, nor abated no Diligence —Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, 1719 (in McKnight 1928) It was during the 18th century that the double negative began to attract the unfavorable notice of grammarians. Leonard 1929 cites such early 18th-century grammarians as James Greenwood (An Essay Towards a Practical English Grammar, 1711), but it seems to have been Lowth 1762 who gave the classic form to the statement: • Two negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an affirmative Lowth's statement was repeated word for word by Murray 1795 and in various forms by many other grammarians; it has become part of the warp and woof of pedagogy. Lowth's statement is not original with him—it is simply a rule of Latin grammar. And it was a well-known rule; as early as 1591 Sir Philip Sidney in Astrophel and Stella had written a joking sonnet based on the principle that two negatives make an affirmative (quoted in Baron 1982). Lowth was aware of earlier use of multiple negation for emphasis; in a footnote he too cites Chaucer and Shakespeare. But he thought the old practice was obsolete. • It was later and lesser grammarians (Leonard cites J. Mennye's An English Grammar in 1785 and John Clarke's Rational Spelling Book in 1796) that made absolute the dictum about two negatives making a positive. From the absolute position seems to have arisen the often urged argument that the statement is based on logic. As Lamberts 1972 has pointed out, it all depends on what logic you choose. Two negatives may make a positive in the logic of Latin grammar, but not in the logic of algebra: —a + —a = —2a. Algebraic logic yields approximately the same result as the old multiple negative—simply a stronger negative. The old multiple negative and the common or garden double negative were passing out of literature in Lowth's time. What was happening was that their sphere of use was contracting; they were still available but were restricted to familiar use—conversation and letters. And, since old forms persist the longest among the least educated, the double negative became generally associated with the speech of the unlettered. In modern use, the double negative is widely perceived as a rustic or uneducated form, and is indeed common in the speech of less educated people: • ... I never had nary bit of desire to drink no strong drinks since I felt the Lord forgive me —Sam Johnson, quoted in Our Appalachia, ed. Laurel Shackelford & Bill Weinberg, 1977 • ... my daddy was all gray and didn't have no bank account and no Blue Cross. He didn't have nothin', and he worked himself to death —Louis Banks, quoted in Studs Terkel, Hard Times, 1970 • I went and saw the Allen Brothers in a free concert ... and I didn't know nothing about bluegrass — Rick Stacy, quoted in Bluegrass Unlimited, July 1982 • We ain't had no breakfast, we're going hungry, so what do you mean we can't get no relief? —Nannie Washburn, quoted in Harper's Weekly, 16 May 1975 • "It just wouldn't do no good," John Francis Mich-alski said from his corner stool in Uncle John's Bar —James T. Wooten, N.Y. Times, 1 Sept. 1974 And of course, the double negative is put into the speech of similar characters in fiction: • "... and then there warn't no raft in sight...." — Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, 1884 • "... the refreshin' rain-drops will begin to fall without none of your help " —Marietta Holley, "A Pleasure Exertion," in Mark Twain's Library of Humor, 1888 • "... pretty near everybody uses that once in a wile without no bad after effects." —Ring Lardner, The Big Town, 1921 • 'Mr. Rosen, my husband didn't have no friends.' — Bernard Malamud, The Magic Barrel, 1958 • I won't have nothing to do with those people, Houdini told his manager —E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime, 1975 It still occurs in the casual speech and writing of more sophisticated and better educated people: • I never believe nothing until I got the money —Flannery O'Connor, letter, April 1952 • There's one more volume which I hope will be the last but I haven't no assurance that it will be —William Faulkner, 5 June 1957, in Faulkner in the University, 1959 • Anyway, as you know, Ez hasn't changed none — Archibald MacLeish, letter, 30 Sept. 1958 • You can't do nothing with nobody that doesn't want to win —Robert Frost, letter, 20 Sept. 1962 The double negative may even be trotted out in discursive prose for effect: • The sailplane sure ain't no 747! —Susan Ochshorn, Saturday Rev., 14 Apr. 1979 The range of use of the double negative has shrunk considerably in the past 400 years—partly through the hostility of the 18th-century grammarians and their followers—but it has not disappeared. If it's part of your normal speech, you certainly don't need to eradicate it when talking to your family and friends. But it is not a prestige form; you are not likely to impress the boss, the teacher, or the job interviewer by using double negatives. But, as the examples above show, it does have its uses. You just have to pick your occasions. 2. Weak affirmative. Lowth, when he lays down the rule about two negatives making an affirmative, quotes Milton. The double negative as a weak positive was probably not unknown in Shakespeare's time; it was a rhetorical device (the usual name for it is litotes or meiosis; see litotes) that would have been included in 16th-cen-tury books on rhetoric. The intention of this double negative is just the opposite of the traditional one: instead of emphasizing, it is meant as understatement. Some examples: • Fanny looked on and listened, not unamused to observe the selfishness which, more or less disguised, seemed to govern them all —Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814 • "... I have (I flatter myself) made no inconsiderable progress in her affections " —Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814 • Indeed, I am not sure you have not a far clearer view of things —Alexander Woollcott, letter, 4 Dec. 1917 • He turned his blue eyes on Mother. And keeping the home fires burning ain't so easy either, he said. He was not without charm —E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime, 1975 • ... had what Opera News not unfairly called "the kind of performance that gives the composer a bad reputation." —Andrew Porter, New Yorker, 29 July 1985 When this device is overused, reviewers and commentators on style can get annoyed: • ... an annoying penchant for the double negative ("should not pass unnoticed" appears three times, "not dissimilar" twice) —Graham Forst, Books in Canada, February 1976 • One can cure oneself of the not un- formation by memorizing this sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field —George Orwell, footnote to "Politics and the English Language," 1946 |
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