Re: double negatives (was "bad French")

On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Irina Rempt wrote:

> On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> > I want to go to the dance.
> >
> > means something different to me than
> >
> > I don't want to not go to the dance.
> >
> > I use the first (well--I don't go to dances, period, but by way of
> > example...) when my reasons are positive (I'm going to have fun, I'll
> > meet friends) and the second when my reasons are negative (if I don't go
> > I'll be left out).
> >
> > I don't know if I'm making any sense, but that's how I use the double
> > negative.
>
> That's not a double negative as I see it. In "I don't want to not go
> the dance" the first negation (in "don't") negates "want", and the
> second one negates "go to the dance". I don't see what a pedant would
> have against it, except that he would perhaps demand "I don't want
> not to go to the dance" (which is what I typed when I first typed
> this).
Hmm.  For all the hullaballoo about double negatives, this distinction
was never made clear to me in any of my classes.  :-p  As far as *I*
could tell, my pedantic teachers objected to two negative-words in the
same clause.

YHL