Why do people say things like "I didn't do nothing"?
Why do people say things like "I didn't do nothing"?
Like isn't that probable cause saying that you did something?
37 comments
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American English has three languages that we do most of our cultural trade with.
- Commonwealth English
- Mexican Spanish
- Franciscan French
In both of the latter, multiple casual negative modifiers are additive instead of inverting. That is, they have the semantics of "bad" instead of "not.".
Consider :
"i do not not want a million dollars"
and
"That is a bad, bad cookie."
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more common than you think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_negative
different dialects can have different rules about their use
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Not everyone is equally educated on grammar. Not everyone cares about using proper grammar.
If you're asking for a deeper sociological or psychological reason, then grab some books on education disparity, poverty, public schooling, etc.
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Grade school grammar is not a proxy for intellect or education. I've never read an author who had half the respect for grammar that Chat GPT does.
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This occurs in more languages than you think
It's not 'people are dumb' it's 'linguistics is dumb'
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And surprisingly, people speaking such languages as well as English can learn that each language works differently and use the correct form. (Speaking from personal experience.)
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Check Slavic languages for this construct being the correct one.
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As a native speaker of a Slavic language, I hate that it works like this. It makes the language less expressive without providing any benefit.
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Мне так не кажется.
But then, I am not really fluent in Russian anymore. As is typical in 1st generation Americans, I lost the language as a child.
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"Nem csináltam semmit!"
Damn, it works in Hungarian too.
Maybe it's just English that's stupid, and not every other language.
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It's a double-negative. Classic grammatical mistake that is sadly quite common in some modern parlance. Blame culture or the education system, but don't make the mistake of thinking the person saying this is actually trying to slyly indicate they did do something while seeming like they're denying it. That's not what's going on.
Remember: don't use no double-negatives and don't never use no triple-negatives!
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It’s not a grammatical mistake.
People use language differently than you. Get over it.
FWIW, double negatives have longer been used as a way to add emphasis on the statement than they have been considered “incorrect”.
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That's naïve. One can appreciate differences in grammar usage and take them into account when trying to understand someone else in the context of cultural differences and still acknowledge that grammar has formal rules. If you're just going to say that grammatical rules can be ignored, why bother teaching grammar at all? Because as much as there might be deviations from the norm, there is still a norm, and it's important there is one. One cannot appreciate jazz without learning classical musical structures; the existence of jazz does not negate that music has said structures, and jazz wouldn't be jazz without them.
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Pshhhh!!!!! You need to learn your proper 90s ebonics. The proper way "Maaaaan! I aint done nothin!"
This was actually taught properly in at least one state funded college in 1999. I remember vividly laughing at how stupid our future looked.
Now, 25 years later, can confirm. The future is dumb.
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Actually....
"I didn't do nothin'!"
Say it like you're from New Jersey
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There are languages (e.g. Spanish) where a double negative is still understood as a negative.
Standard varieties of English aren't among them, but some dialects are.
The same is also true in German.
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Even in Spanish, some double negatives are underestood as negatives, like "I didn't do anything" (yo no hice nada)
37 comments
It’s slang nerd
I’d love to meet slang nerd.
Is he related to the angry video game nerd?
Woah! I'm walkin' here!