English grammar snob: Lesson two

A telltale sign of poor English fluency is the use of double negatives. When you want to express an idea, make sure to curtail your use of such words as not and hardly; these terms often conflict with other parts of a sentence. Let's take a look at an example:

I could care less about your family's money, my dear; although I don't hardly have any money, I don't need nothing from you but love.

The above sentence contains an appalling number of double-negative errors, so I'll review them one at a time. First of all, the phrase "could care less" REALLY gets on my nerves. I'm not sure what people are thinking when they use it, because it makes absolutely no sense. If a mother "could care less" about her son, then she DOES care about him—how else would she be able to care LESS? If you're trying to convey a sense of little or no concern, use the phrase "couldn't care less," which, unlike its oft-used, oft-abused counterpart, isn't a nonsensical corruption of language.

I couldn't care less about your family's money, my dear; although I don't hardly have any money, I don't need nothing from you but love.

On to the next problem, which lies in the subordinate clause following the semicolon. Hardly is, contrary to Southern dialect in the United States, a negative adverb that is at odds with the negative contraction. Thus, either negative piece can be removed, but considering that the man probably has at least some money, I'll remove the contraction.

I couldn't care less about your family's money, my dear; although I hardly have any money, I don't need nothing from you but love.

Finally, if not is anywhere near nothing in a sentence, your grammar intuition should alert you either to nix the former or to change the latter to anything.

I couldn't care less about your family's money, my dear; although I hardly have any money, I don't need anything from you but love.

Yay! Now that mess of a sentence is much more appealing, and that means this short lesson is coming to a close. Before you scamper off to other blogs, though, keep in mind that double negatives are perfectly fine in conversation and in informal writing.

Furthermore, less offensive double negatives are sometimes useful for emphasis. For instance, let's imagine that CoughAway and ThroatSoother are two rather useless cold medicines and that CoughAway is better than ThroatSoother. You could say that CoughAway is "more effective" than ThroatSoother, but such a statement might be misleading, considering that neither one produces any tangible benefits. In that case, it'd be better to say that CoughAway is "less ineffective" than ThroatSoother. Yes, you're using a double negative. Blasphemy? Not quite. The phrase "less ineffective" as opposed to "more effective" highlights the inadequacy of both medicines rather than the superiority of CoughAway. Sure, you could go with "more effective," and no one (other than I) would bat an eyelash, but truly powerful manipulation of language, also known as rhetoric, relies on minuscule distinctions like this one to sway audiences.

Anyway, I'm kinda digressing, so I'll cut myself short here. Again, I hope you learned something new this time around, and I'll see y'all in a week! =]