My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

G
EORGE
W. B
USH
See Me After Class: I ain’t never ’eard of no one by no name like that.
But, on the other hand, when Al Jolson said, ‘Wait a minute, you ain’t heard
nothin’ yet’ in The Jazz Singer in 1927, he made cinema history. There ain’t no
justice.
Yes-yes to no-nos
Double negatives are permissible – indeed, useful – when they convey cunning
nuances of meaning:
It was a not un usual reaction for
someone who has been given bad news.
Sounds more sympathetic
than It was a usual reaction.
I would n’t say I do n’t like your new
house.
I am too polite to admit that
I hate it.
And  they  are  allowed  for  emphasis  when  they  belong  to  different  phrases  or
clauses:
I will not give up, not now, not ever.
You do n’t ask for much, no more than the rest of them, anyhow.
Positive or negative?
Interpretation  of  a  deliberate  double  negative  may  depend  on  context  and
intonation.
She’s not
un
attractive.
This may mean that she is not ugly, but neither is she
beautiful – she’s not un attractive. On the other hand, we
may be leaping to the lady’s defence – she’s not

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unattractive!
Your
visits are
not in
frequent.
You could visit more often – or you visit regularly enough.
I ca n’t
not come
if you’re
singing.
I don’t want to come but I’m obliged to if you are singing –
or I wouldn’t miss your singing for the world.
That’s
not bad
That’s good – or it could be better .
Sometimes double negatives contradict themselves to make positive
statements:
I’m not not doing my job !
I am doing my job!
There is n’t a day when I do n’t
think about him.
I think about him every day.
He cannot just do nothing .
He doesn’t understand the
concept of idleness.
And, guess what, songwriters use them all the time: I ain’t got nobody , We do n’t
need no education and Je ne regrette rien . Although, to be fair, the double negative
is completely grammatical in French, so although you can scoff at Cab Calloway
or Pink Floyd all you like, don’t cast no aspersions on Edith Piaf.
Ha-ha
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class.
‘In English,’ he said, ‘a double negative forms a positive. In some
languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative.
However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a
negative.’
‘Yeah, right,’ piped a voice from the back of the room .

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P
LEONASM
,
PROLIXITY AND TAUTOLOGY
(
OR
, W
ORDINESS
)
Wordiness –  also  known  as  long-windedness,  pleonasm,  prolixity,  redundancy,
verboseness,
verbosity,
windiness,
wordage,
verbiage,
garrulousness,
redundancy, tautology or logorrhoea – is to be avoided at all costs.
‘Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary
words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a
drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary