H. L. Mencken,
The American Language — The Double Negative
(1919)
“ Syntactically, perhaps the chief characteristic of vulgar American is its sturdy fidelity to the double negative. So freely is it used, indeed, that the simple negative appears to be almost abandoned. ”
H. L. Mencken,
The American Language — The Double Negative
(1919)
“ No, it doesn’t,” heard every day and by no means from the ignorant only, is a sort of double negative. The insertion of but before that, as in I doubt but that and there is no question but that, makes a double negative that is probably full-blown. Nevertheless, as we have seen, it is heard on the floor of Congress every day, and the Fowlers show that it is also common in England. [2] Even worse forms get into the Congressional Record. Not long ago, for example, I encountered without hardly an exception in a public paper of the utmost importance. ”
H. L. Mencken,
The American Language — The Double Negative
(1919)
“ Like most other examples of bad grammar encountered in American the compound negative is of great antiquity and was once quite respectable. The student of Anglo-Saxon encounters it constantly. In that language the negative of the verb was formed by prefixing a particle, ne. ”
