Double negatives
Since the 17th century, English grammarians have spoken out against constructions with double negatives. Before the 17th century, double negatives were considered perfectly acceptable in English, like in present-day Spanish, French and many other languages of the world. Even today we're often taught to avoid a double negative.
The idea is that we should try to avoid saying something like:
- He didn't not get the prize.
This is because in logic, two nots cancel each other out. So the statement above would logically mean:
