ARE DOUBLE NEGATIVES OKAY? YES!

I'M GOING TO GO OUT ON A LIMB here and contradict most of the
books ever written on the subject of grammar. (Who said I wasn't
brave?) Traditional advice has always been not to use double
negatives. For example, sentences such as these are traditionally
frowned on:

I didn't do nothing!
Don't give me no lip!
There ain't no such thing.

DETRACTORS WILL ARGUE that such sentences involve a
contradiction of the intended meaning. In the first sentence, if
the speaker didn't do nothing then he or she must have done
something. In the second sentence, the speaker seems to be asking
to be given some lip and, in the third sentence, the speaker is
arguing that there is such a thing.

MY POSITION IS that while these criticisms are pedantically
true, there's really no likelihood that anyone would
misunderstand the intended meaning. If a mother turns to her
child and snaps "Don't give me no lip!", it would take a
particularly slow-witted child to assume that she was inviting a
dispute. (And certainly even the dullest child wouldn't make that
particular mistake twice!)

NO, FAR FROM BEING MISUNDERSTOOD, in most cases a double negative
actually makes the intended meaning more clear by being more
emphatic. For example, consider these sentences:

I didn't do it!
I didn't do nothing!

TO ME, THE SECOND ONE seems like a stronger, more emphatic
denial by virtue of having two negative words (didn't and
nothing), rather than just one (didn't). The speaker might not be
more believable, but he or she does sound more emphatic.

SO EVEN THOUGH a literal interpretation of a double negative
may contradict the speaker's intended meaning, it's unlikely to
be ambiguous in context. On the contrary, the meaning is probably
made even clearer: doubly so.

IN SUMMARY THEN, double negatives needn't be no sin!

Tim North