Double Negatives Part 2: The Sneaky Negatives

Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and earlier this week, I talked about double negatives. I made a handy little list of common negative words to avoid using together, which included words like “nowhere,” and “nobody.” These are pretty easy to identify as negatives, but unfortunately, there’s another class of negatives that are much sneakier. If I say, for example, that I rarely make a grammar mistake, “rarely” is an adverb that qualifies “make.” Specifically, it’s a negative adverb because it is limiting the verb, and as such it needs to be treated like any other negative – that is, it can’t be doubled. The most common mistake is to say that you “can’t hardly wait.” This is a double negative thanks to the “not” contraction and the “hardly” adverb, which is just plain bad grammar. That’s your Grammar Minute! Visit thegrammarminute.com for more tips and tricks.