TRANSCRIPT OF THE ABOVE VIDEO: English Grammar Lesson: Avoiding Double Negatives - Essential English Grammar Simplified

Hi everyone, its Nicole here and I'm back answering another one of your questions.

Today, what I'd like to talk about is double negatives. I've seen lots of errors in this area lately, and one of my students actually just asked me about this the other day, so I thought this would be a really really helpful little tip for you all, so that you can avoid making this mistake yourselves.

So, first of all, what is a double negative? Think about maths, ok, in mathematics, if you use two negatives, that equals a positive.

Well, guess what? It's the same in language, and especially in the English language. You can't in one sentence use two negative forms because two negative words will cancel each other out. That means that it will not have a negative meaning anymore, and that the sentence itself is wrong.

So, we only ever use one negative in our sentence, or in our phrase or in our clause, I suppose, we can't have two together because it won't work, just like in mathematics. So, we want to use our negatives correctly. So, we're going to stick with just one.

Let me give you an example. If I would say something like ‘I couldn't have none of the cake.’ Let me say that again. ‘I couldn't have none of the cake’ - sounds horrible, and I hate telling you a sentence that is wrong. In this situation, it's 100% wrong. It doesn't work. Do you know why? Yeah, it's because there's a double negative, because we have said ‘couldn't’ but also in that same sentence we've said ‘none’ ‘I couldn't have none of the cake’ - wrong - just doesn't work!

So instead, the meaning of this actually means I could have some of the cake, it's giving the opposite meaning now, but that's not what we're wanting to say. You know, we're wanting to say ‘I couldn't have any of the cake’, so do remember that we only have one negative form in that sentence and that the remaining part of that sentence must be positive, all of it, otherwise, it won't give the meaning that you want it to. So, instead, this sentence correctly would be ‘I couldn't have any of the cake’ - much better, and I'm happy saying that sentence! 

Another example, ‘He's not going nowhere.’ Look, even when I say that it sounds wrong, doesn't it? ‘He's not going nowhere’ - again, the error there is that it's a double negative that I'm using, not, and then in that same sentence, in that same breath, I'm saying nowhere. So there's two negatives there, the actual meaning there is that he is going somewhere, and you don't want to say that, you want to give that opposite meaning, so instead of saying ‘he's not going nowhere’, our second negative has to be a positive, so we would say ‘He's not going anywhere.’ So, we're changing the no to an any. Does that make sense?

Yeah, look, another horrible example is ‘I can't find my keys nowhere’ - double negative. Instead, I would say, what do you think? That's right. ‘I can't find my keys anywhere.’ So the first negative stays negative, and that second one is positive. So the rest of the sentence after that first negative must be positive, anything that is a no we change to an any, so ‘I can't find my keys anywhere’. 

Another ‘I didn't say nothing’. I hear that so often, even native speakers say that, it's wrong. Instead we will say ‘I didn't say anything’. That's right. So we're changing the nothing to an anything. 

Another example, ‘I don't have nobody to help me’. I hate saying it wrong! So, instead we change that second part of the sentence and make it positive, and we would say, what do you think? Yeah, ‘I don't have anybody to help me’ well done. 

Another one, ‘She didn't want no one to see her’ so, ‘she didn't want anyone to see her’. So, that's a double negative there.

I hope that that really really helps. Yeah, just remember, let's keep it simple, only have one negative in your sentence, one negative in your clause. If you have more than one, when you speak, when you write, it's wrong. Replace that second one with a positive - 99% of the time it's going to become an ‘any’ word. So, instead of no one it becomes anyone, instead of none it becomes any, instead of nothing it becomes anything etc.

So, I hope that really really helps. Double negatives - something to be aware of and definitely something to check when you are writing. Have a great day everyone, and don't use any double negatives, promise! Bye.