English
In standard written English, when two negatives are used in one sentence, the negatives are understood to cancel one another and produce a weakened affirmative. However, in many dialects, the second negative is employed as an intensifier and should be understood as strengthening the negation rather than removing it.
Read more about this topic: Double Negative
Famous quotes containing the word english:
“On becoming soldiers we have not ceased to be citizens.”
—Oliver Cromwell’s Soldiers. Address, 1647, to the English Parliament. “Humble Representation.”
“The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The English are a nation of consummate cant.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)