Greek
Doubled negatives are perfectly correct in Ancient Greek. With few exceptions, a simple negative (οὐ or μή) following another negative (e.g., οὐδείς, no one) results in an affirmation: οὐδείς οὐκ ἔπασχε τι ("No one was not suffering") means more simply "Everyone was suffering". Meanwhile, a compound negative following a negative strengthens the negation: μὴ θορυβήσῃ μηδείς ("Do not permit no one to raise an uproar") means "Let not a single one among them raise an uproar".
These constructions apply only when the negatives all refer to the same word or expression. Otherwise, the negatives simply work independently of one another: οὐ διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀκοντίζειν οὐκ ἔβαλον αὐτόν means "It was not on account of their not throwing that they did not hit him", and one shouldn't blame them for not trying.
Modern Greek prefers double negation — Κανείς δεν μίλησε, "No one did not talk" — to single (here, Ουδείς μίλησε, "None talked").
Read more about this topic: Double Negative
Famous quotes containing the word greek:
“Certainly for us of the modern world, with its conflicting claims, its entangled interests, distracted by so many sorrows, so many preoccupations, so bewildering an experience, the problem of unity with ourselves in blitheness and repose, is far harder than it was for the Greek within the simple terms of antique life. Yet, not less than ever, the intellect demands completeness, centrality.”
—Walter Pater (18391894)
“Mass ought to be in Latin, unless you cd. do it in Greek or Chinese. In fact, any abracadabra that no bloody member of the public or half-educated ape of a clargimint cd. think he understood.”
—Ezra Pound (18851972)
“He degraded himself by the vice of drinking, which, together with a great stock of Greek and Latin, he brought away with him from Oxford and retained and practised ever afterwards.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (16941773)