Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

Double negatives and usage

438a

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Words such as never, nobody, no one, nothing, nowhere have a negative meaning and do

not require a negative verb form:

The company 

never told the new staff that they needed a password.

(The company didn’t never tell the new staff that they needed a password.)

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539 Glossary for any unfamiliar terms

Negation | 735

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When I got there, there was 

nobody in the park.

(When I got there, there wasn’t nobody in the park.)

However, in many non-standard dialects of English, double and multiple negatives are

frequent with words such as never, nobody, nothing and nowhere:

I did

n’t see nobody nowhere.

Double and multiple negatives are used, especially in spoken English, in order to create

emphasis. Traditional grammar books prohibit them, and the use of double negatives

with words such as never, nobody, nothing and nowhere is a very sensitive issue.

Learners of English are advised not to use them.

However, a kind of emphatic double negative often occurs in reinforcing statement tags 

(