Nov 29, 2013 17:07
10 yrs ago
4 viewers *
English term
Nobody is doing nothing vs. Nobody is doing anything
English
Other
Linguistics
grammar
Please advise which of these forms is *more* correct.
Thank you in advance!
Thank you in advance!
Responses
Responses
+9
2 mins
Selected
Nobody is doing anything. The other is wrong.
If nobody is doing nothing, everyone must be doing something. And that is the opposite of the meaning you want.
Peer comment(s):
agree |
Monica Colangelo
: Spot on!
1 min
|
Thank you.
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neutral |
David Moore (X)
: But he hasn't told you what he wants to say...
2 mins
|
agree |
Tony M
: This would be the commonest form for what we have to assume is the intended meaning. Jack has made that assumption of what would be the 'usual' intended meaning.
13 mins
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Thank you, Tony.
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agree |
Tina Vonhof (X)
: Unless it's a quotation of someone talking that way.
1 hr
|
Thank you.
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agree |
Firas Allouzi
2 hrs
|
Thank you.
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agree |
writeaway
: "more correct"? no. this is correct and the other is wrong, as you say
7 hrs
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Thank you.
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agree |
Anna Herbst
: This is the correct form unless you actually mean that everone is doing something.
11 hrs
|
Thank you
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agree |
Daniel Weston
12 hrs
|
Thank you.
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agree |
airmailrpl
: -
17 hrs
|
Thank you.
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agree |
Mikhail Korolev
1 day 6 hrs
|
Тhank you.
|
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
Comment: "many thanks to all!!! "
+2
3 mins
Nobody is doing anything
The first phrase is wrong. It is two negative sentences and combining them makes it a positive which means that the person IS doing something.
The second phrase is right
The second phrase is right
Peer comment(s):
agree |
Tony M
: This would be the commonest form for what we have to assume is the intended meaning.
12 mins
|
agree |
airmailrpl
: -
17 hrs
|
+3
2 mins
Prescriptive grammarians would pick the second option as the correct one
P
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Note added at 3 mins (2013-11-29 17:10:46 GMT)
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Yet, a "double negative" is not always incorrect.
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Note added at 3 mins (2013-11-29 17:10:46 GMT)
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Yet, a "double negative" is not always incorrect.
Peer comment(s):
agree |
Monica Colangelo
0 min
|
Thank you, Monica.
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agree |
Victoria Britten
53 mins
|
Thank you, Victoria. :-)
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agree |
airmailrpl
: -
17 hrs
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Thank you, airmailpl.
|
+8
11 mins
It depends entirely on context.
In the Queen's English, nobody is doing nothing is incorrect, by custom, and by assumptions about the audience. The argument that the double negative makes a positive is logical, but wrong. Italian, Spanish and French regularly use double negatives for emphasis. For example, if you have a group of accused criminals being interrogated, they might emphasize that "nobody did nothing" - and that would be quite correct in that context; obviously it also depends on the level of literacy of the speaker and the assumed audience.
Peer comment(s):
agree |
Darius Saczuk
: This is the point I raised in the discussion box.
9 mins
|
agree |
Terry Richards
: Yes, this could be a piece of colloquial dialogue.
10 mins
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agree |
Mikhail Kropotov
22 mins
|
agree |
Victoria Britten
43 mins
|
agree |
Charles Davis
: This comes nearest to expressing my view of it.
1 hr
|
agree |
Stephanie Ezrol
: nicely stated
4 hrs
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neutral |
writeaway
: asker asked which is "more correct". that doesn't depend on the context.
6 hrs
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neutral |
Anna Herbst
: Can not say where usage is going in the US, but in AUS and the UK the double negation becomes a positive, so if nobody did nothing, everyone did something.
11 hrs
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agree |
Phoenix III
2 days 9 hrs
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agree |
Jim Tucker (X)
: Yes. "Nobody is doing nothing" is dialectical, but widespread. Heck, even Shakespeare was fond of the double negative.
2 days 9 hrs
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1 hr
no one is doing anything
As "nobody" is very informal, I'd go with "no one."
Example from the New York Times:www.nytimes.com/.../budget-agreement-finesses-tou...
16/04/1989 - ... Street and foreign governments as well as ordinary American voters to say, as they have grown used to saying, that no one is doing anything.
Example from the New York Times:www.nytimes.com/.../budget-agreement-finesses-tou...
16/04/1989 - ... Street and foreign governments as well as ordinary American voters to say, as they have grown used to saying, that no one is doing anything.
+12
1 min
nobody is doing anything
other is double negative
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Note added at 2 hrs (2013-11-29 19:29:11 GMT)
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I assumed, since the heading is Linguistics, that you wanted the "correct" grammatical form, not some colloquial double negative.
Of course Richard has a point about context but his example of criminals in a court does not lead one to expect good grammar!
As for double negatives in other languages, well, this is about English, and while they can be used as intensifiers and sometimes in a jocular way by educated natives, in general, they are used by the less literate and less educated members of society.
Yes, "nobody is doing nothing" could be read as
"everyone is doing something" but most of us assumed otherwise.
As Tony has said, what's the point of adding ambiguity when a single negative will suffice?
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Note added at 2 hrs (2013-11-29 19:29:11 GMT)
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I assumed, since the heading is Linguistics, that you wanted the "correct" grammatical form, not some colloquial double negative.
Of course Richard has a point about context but his example of criminals in a court does not lead one to expect good grammar!
As for double negatives in other languages, well, this is about English, and while they can be used as intensifiers and sometimes in a jocular way by educated natives, in general, they are used by the less literate and less educated members of society.
Yes, "nobody is doing nothing" could be read as
"everyone is doing something" but most of us assumed otherwise.
As Tony has said, what's the point of adding ambiguity when a single negative will suffice?
Peer comment(s):
agree |
Monica Colangelo
1 min
|
thanks Monika!
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agree |
Fabrizia Morra
6 mins
|
Thanks Fabrizia!
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agree |
Nancy Greenleese
7 mins
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Thanks Nancy!
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agree |
Tony M
: This would be the commonest form for what we have to assume is the intended meaning.
14 mins
|
Thanks Tony! Yes, we can only assume...
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agree |
Mikhail Kropotov
31 mins
|
Thanks Mikhail!
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agree |
Jean-Claude Gouin
44 mins
|
Thanks 1045!
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agree |
Firas Allouzi
2 hrs
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Thanks Firas!
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agree |
Piyush Ojha
: I doubt any native speaker would regard the two negatives here as cancelling each other. Nevertheless, in standard English, 'no one is doing anything' is correct.
7 hrs
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many thanks Piyush:-) I'm sure Asker was not expecting this long discussion!
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agree |
Daniel Weston
12 hrs
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Many thanks Daniel:-)
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agree |
airmailrpl
: -
17 hrs
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Many thanks airmailpl:-)
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agree |
Mikhail Korolev
1 day 6 hrs
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Many thanks klp:-)
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agree |
Phong Le
2 days 11 hrs
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Many thanks Phong:-)
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-1
3 hrs
both phrases mean the opposite
The first means people are doing something. The second means that they are doing nothing. I would not say that the first statement is incorrect. Both statements are correct. It depends on what you want to say. For eg. a mobile company, Micromax, has the punchline, "NOTHING LIKE ANYTHING."
Discussion
That is exactly the point I was making earlier: double negatives in writing are best avoided by non-native speakers, for fear of introducing an inadvertent ambiguity. I don't think any of the discussion here has really been about the oral situation, which is of course quite different.
Fowler reminds us that language is always in a flux and accepted practice changes over time.
And that no woman has, nor neuer none Shall mistris be of it, saue I alone.
In present day English, closely placed self-cancelling negatives are eminently acceptable if they are not overused or too intricate: e.g. it has not got unnoticed = it has been noticed; I don't feel inclined to disagree; a not unwelcome decision; I am not entirely dissatisfied. On the other hand, the use of double or cumulative negation for emphasis is taken to be a certain indication of poor education and of linguistic deficit. But it was not always so in the past and attitudes can easily change again in the future."
Fowler's Modern English Usage, Revised 3rd Ed, R W Burchfield, 1998.
http://www.bartleby.com/185/45.html
And a more academic survey:
http://www.american.edu/cas/tesol/resources/upload/Kirby_Phi...
From the Urban Dictionary.
www.cbssports.com/.../video-lebron-james-says-i-aint-got-no...
Jun 21, 2013 - 2013 NBA Finals MVP LeBron James says he doesn't have any worries when it comes to basketball and what people say about him.
Of course "nobody is doing anything" is standard and "nobody is doing nothing" is non-standard or dialectal. The latter is wrong according to normative grammar.
But I don't think redundancy or ambiguity are relevant issues here. There is no ambiguity for users of the dialect (or for any listener or reader, in practice). And avoidance of redundancy is not by any means always a priority. I believe double negatives like this are used as intensifiers. "Nobody is doing nothing" is more emphatic. It will often express outrage: something should be done, and nobody is doing anything. The multiple negativity intensifies the statement. It can even be triple: "Nobody ain't doing nothing".
I'm not holding this up for imitation, just endorsing what Dariusz and Richard have said.
Compare:
"The man was taken il, and everyone stood around doing nothing"
"The man was taken ill, and no-one did anything"
In an oral context, one might well hear "An' d'you know, nob'dy did nuffin' to help!" — in informal conversation, that passes well enough; but in written language (other than as reported speech), it stands out like a sore thumb.
What you haven't told us is whether everyone is active - i.e., everyone is doing something, or 'everyone is doing nothing'.
Could you give us the sentence in which the term is to appear - and what it really means? The first expression could well be used colloquially, though technically wrong, but then colloquial speech often strays from the straight and narow path the 'prescriptive grammarian' would like to see trod...
Having said that, the first term - 'nobody is doing nothing' - is rather odd, and I'd say Jack may be right: but only you know...