This question comes to you via my 14 year old son Rylix.
If someone asks me, “Is your name El Zagna?”, my answer would be “Yes”. If they asked me, “Isn’t your name El Zagna?”, the answer is still “Yes”, even though the second question is really asking the opposite of the first - “Is your name something other than El Zagna?”, so the answer should be “No.”
I guess this isn’t technically a double negative, it’s more of single negative, but the idea is the same. “I don’t have no money” technically means “I have some money” even though we all recognize it as “I’m broke”.
Still, even the most strident grammer nazis give this kind of grammer a pass, but why?
If there are rules against double negatives, there should be rules against the misuse of single negatives. Don’t you agree?
“Is it true” and “Is it not true” mean the same thing but imply different circumstances. “Is it not true” implies a belief. “Is it true” has no such implication. If I ask, “Is it not true that your name is Mudd?” it implies that I believe I know your name to be Mudd. There is no double negative or problem with the grammar either way; simply different shades of meaning.
That’s a good question, isn’t it? – So, is the preceding sentence really a negative question? No: in reality, doesn’t “isn’t it?” just emphasise the positive assertion that precedes?
(And here you have three setences which formally are questions, but which really are statements in disguise – and the only one carrying a negative meaning is the middle one, which doesn’t have “n’t” or “not” in it.
Some languages actually address this problem. IIRC, for instance, that in French, the response to such a Negative Interrogative would be si rather than oui – contrast “Est-ce que vous etes au bureau?” “oui, je suis au bureau” (“Are you at the office?” “Yes, I’m at the office”) with “Vous n’etes pas au bureau?” “Si, je suis au bureau!” (“Aren’t you at the office?” “Yes, I am at the office!”) [I hope I didn’t mangle it too much – high-school french from a previous millenium…]
English doesn’t make the distinction, so we are effectively using the word “yes” in two different contexts, where the French differentiate between “oui” (“Yes”) and “si” (which sort of means “On the contrary…”, “But yes…” or something like that)
Well, this is what my son does except he leaves off the explanatory part “…it is El Zagna”:
“Didn’t I tell you to take out the trash?”
“No.”
It drives me nuts.
I’ve told him that he should simply accept blindly and without question what his father tells him, but he’s having none of that. However he has agreed that if the folks at the Straight Dope could give him a good reason why “yes” is the correct answer in such cases, then he will mend his ways. Well, not that he’ll take out the trash when asked, but, y’know…
I think daffy duck hit it pretty close. When you say, “Didn’t I ask you to take out the trash?” you are really asking for an accounting of why the trash hasn’t been taken out. When you ask, “Isn’t his name John Smith?” you are asking for confirmation, or not, that your belief that his name is really John Smith.
Asking “Did I ask you to take out the trash?” is really trying to find out if you really did ask that the trash be taken out or if you forgot. When you ask “Is his name John Smith?” it is really the same as the above case. You think his name is John Smith but you need confirmation.
The way I speak English, answering ‘Yes’ to the second question would sound a little odd. The proper answer would be ‘It is’, which clears up any possible misunderstanding.
Young Man to SYT: Would you like to go for a ride in my car?
Sweet Young Thing to YM: I wouldn’t care if If I did. She was astounded when he drove off without her. :rolleyes:
The other negative I hear people use incorrectly is:
“I could care less.” when describing something the have zero interest in.
The correct stating is “I couldn’t care less.”
By saying “I couldn’t care less” (the correct way) your inferring that there is no level of care for the intended matter that is lower than your level. Like saying on a scale of 0 to 5 of caring, I care 0. Since I care at the 0 level, I can’t care any less than that.
By saying “I could care less” (the wrong way) your inferring that wherever your level of care is, there is a level lower than that. Like saying on a scale of 0 to 5 of caring, I care about a 3. I could care less than that because I could care at a level of 0, 1, or 2.
I grew up speaking Québec French and I don’t think I have ever heard of this. “Si” to me means “if” and is used to describe conditional situations. I Googled and did find references for this, but I suspect, at least in this part of the world, that it is a usage that is fading away. Can anyone confirm?
In English interrogatives, oddly, the question is often phrased in a manner opposite to the expected answer. “Didn’t I fix that already?” implies a “Yes, you did, but it’s broken again.” On the other hand, the Steve Erkelism “Did I do that?” implies, “No, you didn’t.”
The true double negative is a solecism in formal English, but is fairly common in colloquial use, matching up with its role in other languages, where it serves as a reduplicative emphatic. “I didn’t do nothin’!” exclaims the child, as his Spanish-speaking compatriot indignatnly informs his parents, “No hice nada!” – completely grammatically.
The final case of the double negative, litotes, is also not uncommon in refined English.
The tone of voice in which the question is asked may be important, too. “Isn’t that right?” can convey either puzzlement by the questioner, or an implication that the answerer is either dumb or evasive.
“Isn’t it true that…” is a classic introduction to a question on cross-examination at trial, and will often be distinctly accusatory.
Sarcasm, man. It’s a sarcastic expression that’s turned into a cliche, and then into a favorite beating-boy for language mavens. People are using it correctly when they use it as an idiom. That’s the nature of language.
I’d give similar advice the teenager. Language is used to communicate. If the audience understands what the speaker intends to communicate, but the audience deliberately pretends the speaker intends a different communication, the audience is deliberately sabotaging communication.
