“Not a single good reason except the tyranny of usage,” says John S. Kenyon, “can be given for not using two or more negatives to strengthen negation. It is wholly in accord with linguistic principle, being in the best of use in many other languages, as formerly in English, and is extremely effective, as in Chaucer’s famous four-negative sentence.1 It is still in full vigor in folk speech, where its great value keeps it alive; and it frequently occurs in disguise in cultivated use.”2 Noah Webster was of the same opinion, and said so in his “Philosophical and Practical Grammar” of 1807. Thus:
The learned, with a view of philosophical correctness, have rejected the use of two negatives for one negation; but the … change has not reached the great mass of the people and probably never will reach them; it being nearly impossible, in my opinion, ever to change a usage which enters into the language of every cottage, every hour and almost every moment.… In this instance the people have the primitive idiom; and if the Greeks, that polished nation, thought fit to retain two negatives for a negation, in the most elegant language ever formed, surely our men of letters might have been less fastidious about retaining them in the English.
Examples of multiple negation swarm in the records of American folk-speech. Vance Randolph says3 that in the Ozarks “the double negative, as in ‘I never done nothin’,’ is the rule rather than the exception. Often,” he goes on, “nohow is added for greater emphasis, and we have a triple negative. Even the quadruple form, ‘I ain’t never done nothin’ nohow,’ is not at all uncommon. Occasionally one hears the quintuple, ‘I ain’t never done no dirt of no kind to nobody.’ Such sentences as ‘I don’t want but one’ are used and defended even by educated Ozarkers.” The free and irrational use of but, in fact, is almost universal in American English, especially in such forms as “I haven’t any doubt but that” (or but what), and in AL4 I gave some examples from learned and eminent sources.4 In the common speech ain’t is often combined with nobody to give a multiple negative a final polish, as in “Ain’t nobody never been there” (No one has ever been there) and “Ain’t nobody never told me nothing about it.” Hardly and scarcely are also used for this cosmetic effect, as in “I don’t know nothin’ scarcely,” “We-all can’t get her to eat nothin’ scarcely,” “It didn’t take hardly ten minutes,” “He hardly hadn’t never saw her” and “It don’t hardly amount to nothin’.” Some miscellaneous specimens from my archives:
I don’t believe it would do but little harm if he does.1
I don’t kinda think it ain’t.
Please don’t buy but one.2
I will not be responsible for any debts only by myself after January 5, 1938.3
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
They didn’t none of them go.
I haven’t never gotten able to work any yet.4
I ain’t seen nobody roun’ here at no time.
He didn’t say nothing to nobody neither.5
Once a child gets burnt once it won’t never stick its hand in no fire no more.
There may not be no nothing.
Ain’t you learned to not never argue with no woman no more?6
If it don’t rain they ain’t no use for ’em to come up nohow.
He oughtn’ to never done it.7
I ain’t got nary none.
That boy ain’t never done nothin’ nohow.
I ain’t never seen no men-folks of no kind do no washin’.8
Hardly nobody don’t chew no tobacco no more nowheres.
This government last year could not raise but $3,000,000,000.9
Ain’t nobody hit nothing, has they?
Ain’t nothing you can’t do.
You can’t get nobody out nowhere around no base without no ball.10
He don’t know from nothing.11
You could not be but one person.1
There didn’t nobody see him, did they?
Hardly nobody don’t.
Don’t everybody know how.2
Both good schemes, but neither don’t put anybody to work.3
Don’t nobody touch that.
Didn’t I never tell, you ain’t got no right to go out and chase after no ball when nobody ain’t watching you?4
Nobody ain’t never said nothin’ about sendin’ no flowers to nobody.5
I never set no hens, nor nothing of the kind.
Nobody’s never wanted me.
You can’t get nowhere neither.
The last three are from the Linguistic Atlas of New England,6 which presents massive evidence of the prevalence of double and triple negatives in the area it covers. It distinguishes six main divisions, as follows:
1. The subject and the verb are negated, as in “Nobody hadn’t ought to.”
2. The verb and the predicate noun or adjective are negated, as in “That ain’t nothin’.”
3. The verb and the object are negated, as in “I ain’t done nothin’.”
4. The verb and the adverb are negated, as in “I couldn’t get nowheres near him.”
5. The object and the adverb are negated, as in “She never done no hard work.”
6. Triple negation, as in “Tain’t no place for nobody.”
The not-neither combination, as in “I did not do it, neither,” was in good usage until the end of the Eighteenth Century, and examples are to be found in Steele, Richardson, Burke and Cowper,7 but for the past century it has been receding into the common speech, wherein it is still very much alive all over the United States. So with the nor-not combination, as in Shakespeare’s “Nor do not saw the air.”8 The following note upon the double negative comes from an intelligent foreign observer:
It seems to me that the double negative is due, in great measure, to the ease with which not may be joined to the auxiliaries without increasing the number of syllables. Even haven’t, hasn’t, etc., are pronounced as monosyllables. If, in place of no and not, there were longer, or less simple, negating adverbs the double negative would not be possible because of the extra speech-effort required. The construction of the Scandinavian languages simply will not permit it; and so with German. I doubt that you have ever heard a German say anything comparable to: “Ich habe ihm nicht nichts abgenommen” or “Er gebraucht niemals nicht keine Seife.” It can’t be done.1
1 This sentence is given in AL4, p. 470.
2 Ignorance Builds a Language, American Scholar, Autumn, 1938, p. 477.
3 The Grammar of the Ozark Dialect, American Speech, Oct., 1927, p. 8.
4 p. 203. I add one from English English, found in the London Times Literary Supplement, Jan. 1, 1944, p. 8: “There can be no doubt but that it works.”
1 From a letter signed Loyal Democrat in the Indianapolis Times, June 24, 1939.
2 Store advertisement in Baltimore, 1936.
3 Advertisement in the Toledo Blade, reprinted in the New Yorker, Sept. 24, 1938.
4 Tonics and Sedatives, Journal of the American Medical Association, May 18, 1940, p. 28.
5 The last two were reported from the Clinch Valley, Virginia, by L. R. Dingus in Dialect Notes, Vol. IV, Part III, 1915, p. 179.
6 Contributed to the William Feather Magazine, Feb., 1941, by Frank Richey. Mr. Richey amused himself by contriving a sentence containing ten negatives and a split infinitive; “I ain’t never got no time for to no longer argue with no woman of no kind, not never, no more, nohow.”
7 The last two are from The Speech of East Texas, by Oma Stanley, before cited, p. 103.
8 The last three are from Our Southern Highlanders, by Horace Kephart; New York, 1921, p. 287.
9 Letter of the Hon. Thomas L. Blanton, of Texas, Congressional Record, Jan. 25, 1935, p. 1037, col. 2.
10 Remark of a rustic baseball coach, contributed by Mr. E. W. Delcamp, of Lexington, Ky.
11 Julius G. Rothenburg, in Some American Idioms From the Yiddish, American Speech, Feb., 1943, p. 48, reports this from New York City. He says that it comes from the Yiddish nisht zu wissen fin gornisht.
1 Letter in the Baptist Record of Jackson, Miss., Oct. 22, 1925.
2 i.e., “Everybody doesn’t know how.”
3 Will Rogers, 1934.
4 Reported from Germantown, Pa., by Jack Edelson, Word Study, Feb., 1946, p. 2.
5 I am indebted for this to Mr. K. L. Rankin.
6 Map 718.
7 For the first three see the NED under neither A3. For Cowper see his letter to William Unwin, Feb. 24, 1782.
8 Hamlet, III, c. 1601.
1 Mr. Valdemar Viking, of Red Bank, N. J.; private communication, Sept. 1, 1938.