Except it’s not clearly saying that. Everyone but you understands the meaning it conveys, and if you fail to understand that meaning, the fault lies with your ability to communicate, not with theirs.
I don’t know about those specific numbers, but yes, many languages have double negatives that serve to intensify rather than negate. English is not one of them. And as I indicated above, that inclination to aggregate a bunch of negatives for emphasis arguably can make it more difficult or impossible to formulate certain expressions that are natural in English.
I understand it just fine. I’m trying to explain why, with a technical background in which language precision is important, I find it illogical and therefore poor practice.
I am perpetually unable to acquire any statisfaction.
The weird thing within English is that people tend to regard their own dialect as being much more consistent and logical than other dialects of English - the other day I had someone arguing with me that it was weird that Brits call thin slices of fried potato ‘crisps’, because they do not stay crisp forever, for example if they get wet or turn stale, therefore ‘chips’ is a more logical term.
(to which I replied, language is not logic)
I don’t think any dialect of English is particularly logical or consistent. English is a messy language and it doesn’t matter, because language (except maybe onomatopoeia) has no inherent meaning - it’s just a collection of grunts, clicks, whistles and other sounds that we have informally agreed to use in exchanging thoughts.
When you say “it’s clearly saying” something it’s clearly not saying, that’s not great communication. Illogical constructions aren’t necessarily poor practice, nor is logical parsing of constructions necessarily good practice. In this case, the logical parsing of the phrase leads to a misunderstanding; the only reasonable conclusion is that logically parsing the phrase hinders communication and is poor practice.
Everyone would understand it in spoken English, but in written form it is somewhat ambiguous, even if you emphasize the text. if you see “I don’t have NO regrets” it most likely still means that they don’t have any regrets, since it would most likely represent a “no” spoken quite sharply, which still means a double negative.
However, in speech, if they said “I don’t have nooooooooo regrets”, where the “no” is emphasized slightly, but lingers and quavers a little bit, then that means that they do have some regrets.
I’m neither against nor for the double negative. But all languages contain ambiguity and this is one of those times.
Good point! I think such a speaker would also end the sentence on higher “note” than otherwise, emphasizing that there’s more implied (“…but I do have some”).
Or, “in case you’re hungry, you can eat the sandwich in the fridge”.
I’ll grant you, the “if you’re hungry” version is not terribly precise and is poor sentence structure. Spoken English (or any other language) is different from what we’d want to see in the narrative portion of a book.
One I hate, but know is correct, is datum / data. I KNOW that one is singular. “I am overweight” is a datum. “50% of US adults are obese” is data. But “datum” sounds pretentious, and “data” used as the subject of a sentence, e.g. “the data are indicative”, just sounds WEIRD. “The data is indicative” just sounds more natural.
Certainly context and tone can change meaning. When the sentence is by itself, “I don’t have no regrets,” the obvious meaning is that the person lacks regrets, and quibbling seems silly. But as you say, tone can change the meaning.
Context can change it too. “Rafael asked me if I truly had no regrets over killing God. I shook my head and explained, I don’t have no regrets, but the ones I have are that I didn’t do it sooner or more enthusiastically.” It’d be a somewhat confusing construction, but folks could puzzle out its meaning.
Yes. Or at least that’s how I interpret what is being suggested here:
Incidentally, that is how I talk (with double negatives, unless I’m purposely speaking in a more formal register) and I have a degree in English and, egads, even spent a spell as a copy editor and proofreader. That’s just how my people talk. Language isn’t math and it pisses me off when people try to act like it is.
English is one of them. Just not in the prestige dialect, in certain grammatical contexts, in the US, in formal and careful speech (and in most writing), in the early-19th-to-mid-21st centuries….
These are the two that drive me crazy, and they seem to be quite common in rural areas:
“That car needs fixed.” “The lawn needs mowed.” TO BE, people. It “needs TO BE”! Or alternatively, it “needs [verb-]ing.”
and
“Anymore, gas is just so expensive.” “There are just so many potholes anymore.” Look I realize these people have never heard the word “nowadays” so they just slot “anymore” in there in replacement, but it drives me batty when they use it with a positive statement because it makes no g-d sense. Especially when it’s used at the beginning of a sentence like that.
Superstitious? Interesting use of the word. Not that I object, mind you.
I do understand, and don’t have a problem with, 99% of ‘wrong’ or ‘improper’ grammatical usages, because they often do serve a clear colloquial or metaphorical purpose. As @pulykamell said “I can’t get any satisfaction” is a worse line. Then there’s this example:
I was taught in grade school that ‘ain’t’ is improper grammar, and that I should not use it. And for a time I did as I was told, and even felt superior to those who used the term (I was kind of a stuck-up little shit in some ways). But if I persisted in my hatred of ‘ain’t’ I would have deprived myself of much popular music. Ain’t that a shame?
But there are a few grammatical usages up with which I will not put. The use of ‘literally’ as an intensifier, losing its literal meaning, being one.
One can accept there is an implied meaning behind a technically incomplete statement, but can still have fun with it.
Like this cornball icebreaker joke: My wife told me “Close the window. It’s cold outside.” So I closed the window and said “There. Is it now warm outside?”
That seems to mainly have originated in the Pittsburgh area, if I remember right, but is quite common all around that part of the US and beyond:
https://ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/needs-washed
Sounded real weird to me the first few dozen times I heard it or read it (I feel like the SDMB is where I first came across it), but now I even use it myself, as it’s such a cute little construction.
I strongly oppose sentences that require the listener to army-crawl into them, climb over multiple jagged obstacles, only to collapse from the other side with, yes, a reasonable understanding, but covered in mud and scratches. 
Yes, “superstition” is a word I, too, like to use when dealing with grammatical pedantry that is based in nonsense. I feel like I first read it in HW Fowler dismissing the rule against splitting infinitives as being a type of superstition.
ETA: it was about ending sentences in prepositions:
Preposition (at end): “It is a cherished superstition that prepositions must, in spite of the incurable English instinct for putting them late,… be kept true to their name, & placed before the word they govern. ’ - HW Fowler
Ah, ok, I hadn’t heard that, thanks.
Nonsense. The rules of language – the good and useful ones, I mean, not the contrived ones like not ending a sentence with a preposition – are expressly intended to facilitate communication. Those rules, which among other things govern how we string words together to express ideas, are ultimately rooted in logic. Not rigorous logic, for sure, because they’re evolved over time by imperfect humans, but logic nonetheless.
Unfortunately, language drift over time has created a lot of illogical constructs and exceptions to sensible rules. Those are rarely good things and blanket acceptance of every new solecism and teen-speak is surely not helpful to good communication.
I haven’t seen such a suggestion, but in any case, let me be clear that I would never correct someone’s grammar IRL unless I was teaching a language class. What I think most or all of us who are critical of certain usages are doing is just expressing annoyance here.
Of course, this being the SDMB, we often get grammatical or spelling corrections posted, but most of it is in fun.
Nicely categorized.
I find it better to say they’re ultimately rooted in metaphor. The book I cited a few posts up includes good info on how logic and metaphor are interconnected — including, sometimes there are logical contradictions among the patterns of metaphor that drive language, at all moments as it constantly evolves (there was no magic golden age when it was “more logical”.)
ETA: Thanks, Yllaria. Note I included a prediction (“…mid-21st century”) — IMHO, obviously.