A Word From Maggie Scott

Ain't never used no double negative!

"You ain’t heard nothin’ yet, folks," is a famous quotation from Al Jolson, from the first talking film The Jazz Singer, released in July of 1927. Many other examples of this type of phrase can be found in regional and informal English, but such expressions are often perceived as being grammatically incorrect because of the ‘double negative’ construction, on the grounds that two negatives cancel each other out, making a positive. Supporters of this line of argument would make the logical point that if you ain’t heard nothin, then you must have heard something.

However, the mathematical idea that two negatives make a positive is a relatively recent development in the history of the English language. During and before the Middle Ages, double negatives were commonplace, and it was not unusual to find triple negatives used for emphasis. For example ‘no’, ‘never’ and ne (also meaning ‘not’) are used together in the description of the Knight in Chaucer’s General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales: He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde

Here, Chaucer is stressing the courteous and polite aspects of the Knight’s behaviour, and underlines that he did not speak with vileynye, or ‘rudeness’.

In the modern age such uses of negatives have become stigmatized under the influence of mathematical rules. The use of double negatives began to die out in standard English around the beginning of the seventeenth century, and it is no coincidence that prescriptive grammars became increasingly popular from this time onwards. These works focussed on the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ of English grammar, and established many of the rules still perceived as markers of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ English today. However, language is notoriously difficult to control, and even the most determined efforts to codify grammar are unlikely to be successful.

But are double negatives really as illogical as some would have us think? Is there any ambiguity in the sense of the line from Bob Dylan’s song Maggie’s Farm: ‘I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more’? Does the listener have to stop and think about the motives of the character, finally concluding that if he is not going to work no more, he must mean that he is going to work some more? The double negative works here in much the same way as the archaic usage which was once commonplace, and still has the power of emphasis even if it is not considered ‘correct’.