Avoid Double Negatives

In English, if a sentence contains two negatives—words such as not or without—the words cancel each other out. Sometimes people intentionally use double negatives, especially when they are trying to sound sophisticated. Saying that the little bistro was not without charm means it was a cute place. But it takes a second to figure that out. It is better to avoid double negatives altogether.

Watch out for the less obvious negatives—hardly, barely, scarcely, cannot. They do count as negatives.

Here are some examples of double negatives and ways to fix them:

The suspect said that she didn’t commit no burglaries.

If you want to be clear and correct, you shouldn’t write this way. Didn’t is a contraction for did not—that is one negative. Combined with no, you have a double negative. Here are two ways to fix it:

The suspect said she didn’t commit any burglaries.
OR
The suspect said she committed no burglaries.

Here's another example:

Recruit Smith hasn’t hardly any worries about how he will do on the running portion of the test.

Hasn’t is a contraction for has not, and hardly is one of those tricky negatives. You have one negative too many. Here are two ways to fix it:

Recruit Smith has hardly any worries about how he will do on the running portion of the test.
OR
Recruit Smith hasn’t any worries about how he will do on the running portion of the test.

One last example:

With the new computerized databases, it doesn’t take scarcely any time to run a license check.

Try one of these instead:

With the new computerized databases, it doesn’t take any time to run a license check.
OR
With the new computerized databases, it takes scarcely any time to run a license check.