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Spain flagCaballero A.
Irony and the affirmative meaning of the double negative
One of the most underlined grammar issues when you begin to learn English is the effect of the double negative (DN), at least for Spanish speakers.

In my mother language the outcome of a DN remains negative, unlike in English. Therefore, the students should avoid making such a mistake, which could lead to mean the opposite of what they want to say, trying not to use the DN in the same sentence.

Once you get used to dealing with that, what was an inconvenient in the beginning could be even considered a chance. I mean, this rule that allows you to start a sentence with a positive sense, changing its whole meaning later by setting the negation in the object,

is it me or could DN be regarded as a useful tool for developing irony?

And, am I going too far or could there be any link between this grammar rule and the use of the irony in a certain culture (English speaking countries, in this case)?

Comments · 6

4
https://www.italki.com/discussion/200879
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The "double negative" rule is exaggerated. For social and historical reasons which I don't fully understand, the double negative is considered to be characteristic of uneducated speech. (I can't prove it but I feel certain that what is going on is hypercorrection, to artificially widen the gap between standard English and African-American vernacular English).

Teachers make a questionable assertion that double negatives are wrong because a double negative logically implies a positive. This is true in mathematical logic but it isn't really true in written English--where double negatives are simply avoided--or in everyday English, where a double negative is almost always understood as an intensifier.

In Huckleberry Finn Jim says "I ain’t got no money for to buy the outfit." No native US speaker is going to interpret that to mean "I have money to buy the outfit."

The only example I can think of offhand, where a double negative implies a positive, is the not un- construction, used in somewhat pompous written English as a way of weakening a positive. "In England its position was strong but not unchallengeable," means it was difficult to challenge but not impossible. "But the broad picture of the war which the Spanish Government presented to the world was not untruthful" means it was not a complete lie.
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At school I was taught that double negatives are mostly incorrect and confusive.
I remember a sentence written with a chalk on the blackboard:
'I DON'T KNOW NOTHING'- it was example of common grammar MISTAKE.
Using two negatives usually turns the thought or sentence into a positive one. 
That won't do you no good.
Nobody with any sense isn't going.
I can't find my keys nowhere.
She never goes with nobody.
I didn't steal nothing.
So, you should be very careful with DN.However, they are sometimes used in everyday casual speech.
  • in literature as Dan Smith quoted
  • in ironical sence as Caballero claims
  • in songs (Songs usually have very simple sentences.They don't have to follow standard grammar rules

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It is amazing!
I also can notice irony. But I had never paid much attention to that before you opened my eyes.

The price of the car is not insignificant.
It is not unnecessary to tell the truth all the time.
The new disease wasn't non-infectious.
He wasn't irresponsible about his duties.

1
Yes, Caballero, your discovery about 'special irony' in such structures, is really true.
It is quite visible:
She did not barely understand the instructions.
Hardly - I hardly have no money.
The news of the company's bankruptcy made scarcely no impact.
That outfit can't simply do for such a formal affair.
Simply - This workload isn't simply too much for me to handle.
But WHY these sentences consist of ironical sense?
It seems to me because 'used in somewhat pompous written English as a way of weakening a positive.' (Dan Smith said)
I also noticed in English we have very often negative form connected with ironical or/and pompous meaning.
Simple example:
Don't we have maths lesson?!!

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