# Double negatives make a positive!  No, they don't!

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-negatives-make-a-positive-no-they-dont/528150>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [February 8, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-negatives-make-a-positive-no-they-dont/528150 "2010-02-08T16:11:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 17

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-negatives-make-a-positive-no-they-dont/528150/17 "2010-02-10T07:12:39Z")

</div>

There are many examples where a negative is actually an emphatic _positive_:  
"Wow, isn’t that girl pretty?’  
“Isn’t she!”

There are also examples where a sentence has three or more negatives and _does indeed_ conform to the rule that a negative is intended if and only if the total number of negatives is an _odd_ number. (Am I the only one that sometimes has to stop and actually count the negatives to understand the meaning of such a sentence?) An example, paraphrased, from a N.Y. Times editorial is the sentence:

In a court case brought by environmentalists against the coal mining industry the judge found that the defendant had failed to demonstrate the damage would not be irreversible.  
Not counting “damage” this clause has four negatives (failed, not, ir-, -revers); thus it _affirms_ the environmental damage.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/double-negatives-make-a-positive-no-they-dont/528150)._