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A double negative is a valid, although awkward, construction in English. The negative of a negative is a positive, but using a double negative does give a slightly different connotation than using a simple positive.

Rather than saying "of course it is X," the double negative says something closer to "those who believe it is not X are wrong."

What you were taught in school was to avoid double negatives when a single negative was intended.

"Nobody hasn't seen this movie" is just incredibly poor grammar. This literally means that every man, woman and child on Earth has seen the movie... and the illiterate fool who uttered the sentence didn't mean that anyway.

I had run across this related tidbit a while ago:

A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. "In English," he said, "A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative." A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
Posted by: Font   Posted on: 08/01/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use
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