When is a 'double-negative' bad?

I got playfully ridiculed the other day for using a double-negative.

I didn’t defend myself at the time because I didn’t think about it, but if I did I would have said…
“My double negative was a correct statement. I said what I meant to say. Most double negatives say the opposite of what was intended”

The double negative I used was…

“I am rarely not here on a Monday” (meaning I am usually here on a monday… wanting to get the ‘rarely’ in to it, so I converted it into a double negative statement)

Which is not the same as the common “I don’t know nuffink” (meaning, I do know something. But the intended meaning is “I know nothing”)

Is it gramatically ‘incorrect’ to use a double negative, even if it makes sense?

I think a double-negative is acceptable as long as it not unintentional.

Double negatives are bad when used accidentally and they reverse the intended meaning of the sentence (“I didn’t do nothing!”)

In cases where they are used without reversing the meaning of the sentence, they aren’t necessarily bad, but when it happens accidentally, the redundancy can be cumbersome.
But used intentionally, they sometimes convey a specific meaning; describing something as “It’s not inexpensive” is technically the same as saying “It’s expensive”, but may also carry the shade of meaning “You were expecting it to be cheap, but it’s not”.

There are also plenty of cases where things appear to be a double negative, but aren’t, because simplifying the phrase by cancelling them out would actually alter the meaning, for example “patients are not compelled to undress” can’t be simplified to “patients are compelled to dress”.

It’s only a problem, when the speaker changes the meaning of the sentence.
What sounds like a double negative isn’t always so either.

Not incorrect, but clumsier than perhaps it need have been - I had to read your sentance a second time to make sure I understood it correctly, and would have had the same trouble if it had been spoken. You could perhaps have said “I am rarely out on a Monday”, which would have been easier to parse?

Grim

There ain’t not no bad time.

In the context it was being said, I should have said “I am rarely off work on a monday”

How does that reverse the intended meaning? Is there any English speaker who wouldn’t recognize that as meaning the same as “I didn’t do anything”?

Double negatives are bad because their are arbitrarily defined as bad English. The rule is more true to reality than many other English “rules” (e.g., ending a sentence with a preposition), but you can’t argue that they reverse the meaning. Often they enhance the meaning: “No,” she said, “Never!” (though that isn’t what people mean when they talk about double negatives.)

But that’s not a double negative, even for hard core prescriptionists. A double negative is something like your original example: using the word “not” with a “no-form” (generally beginning with n): “You’ll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn.” “*He didn’t never do that.” “*She’s not dating no one.” Note that actual double negatives don’t change the meaning, but are considered an improper way of expressing the meaning.

Back to the OP: “I am rarely not here on a Monday” is not a double negative at all. There is no “no-form” word (“rarely” is not a negative. “Never” is a negative.) The sentence is a bit clumsy, but if it were recast as “It’s rare that I’m not here on Monday,” no one would object.

A double negative is a real no-no.

In speech, in that particular case, I think most people would understand it as meaning “I didn’t do anything”. In print, it could quite easily be misunderstood.
And I’m sure there are examples we could find where the double negative makes the phrase ambiguous or otherwise hard to gauge intent.

In written English, double negatives can be confusing when in the form of an emphatic double-negative such as the aforementioned “I didn’t do nothing!” It’s difficult to properly emphasize this so that it’s perfectly clear that you are not using an emphatic double negative, as in both constructions, nothing is emphasized orally, but in different ways.

In oral English, an emphatic double negative would pronounce it “NUH-THING”, (With the second syllable almost as pronounced as the first", while a literal double negative would tend to pronounce it “NUH-thinggggg…(?)” (with the second syllable less pronounced, trailing off a bit and with a slight raise of pitch at the end.)

But a double negative (if ‘correct’) basically ends up meaning an affirmative, so why not use that? “I’m usually/ almost always here on Mondays.”

Also, on this - you’re right that ‘rarely’ is not a negative, but in terms of perception and usage, it is often close to a negative in meaning. That doesn’t make this construction a proper double negative, but it’s near enough to warrant some of the same kinds of care in phrasing.

I would argue that there is a minor shade of difference in meaning between “I’m almost always here on Mondays,” and “I am rarely not here on a Monday.” They’re almost the same, but the latter implies more rarity to me.

I agree, and that’s where double negatives (and constructions that are similar, but not quite proper double negatives) are legitimate and useful - the convey different shades of meaning, often because of the way they interface with the listener’s preconceptions.

Hypothetical example: A child complains “It’s raining, there’s nothing to do!”

The answer “There’s always something to do” is technically the same as “There’s never nothing to do”, but the impact of the two statements is different upon the listener.

My annoying favorite - “I don’t disagree.”

We have a local sports radio guy who uses this phrase frequently in the context of “agreeing” with people.

Example:

C: You know they really ought to trade Joe Blow, he’s not a good 3rd baseman.
M: I don’t disagree; he should be gone.
Egads!

But you can’t rephrase a double negative; to correct it, you need to change a word (e.g., “I don’t know nothing” to “I don’t know anything” or “I know nothing.”).

The OP is not a double negative, and isn’t wrong. However, it is clumsy, which is probably what brought on the double negative comments.

And, even written, “I don’t know nothing about birthing babies” makes its meaning abundantly clear.

I can’t say I wouldn’t be hard pressed to disagree less emphatically with that. :stuck_out_tongue:

I think the actual quote is “I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies.” The meaning is still clear, but throws even one more negative into the mix.

And that’s not called ‘rephrasing’?