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This construction and its variants always sound strange to me. If I was asked to write a sentence with the same meaning, my choice would be:

I don't want a robot running the empire.

Logically, don't want (...) no robot conveys rather the contrary for me: want a robot.

Can someone please clarify the choice? I had just read it in Asimov's Forward the Foundation.

Thank you.

Franks V. Maia
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    It is what is sometimes called "AAV" -- African-American Vernacular -- though, as in this case, it is often used by "literate" writers to either "sound like common folk" or simply emphasize a point. – Hot Licks May 14 '16 at 17:18
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    @HotLicks The double negative is part of AAV, but it's use goes beyond that venue. It's long been a shibboleth across racial and national bounaries to sort the illiterate from the lettered. – deadrat May 14 '16 at 17:44
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    English isn't based on mathematical logic. The doubled negative is in this case an intensifier of negation. Go here: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/207873/since-when-a-double-negative-as-an-intensifier-was-considered-as-non-standard-an – deadrat May 14 '16 at 17:48
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    English does use the double negative logically, but many other languages do not - they use it to intensify the negation (and we often hear this idiom). – AmI May 14 '16 at 19:17
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    I recently reread "Forward the Foundation" and the speaker was a member of the local underclass. Asimov chose the ungrammatical form to emphasize this. – ab2 May 14 '16 at 19:48
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    @deadrat - Unfortunately, I don't believe that there is a well-accepted term for "Illiterate US Vernacular English", which certainly would be more appropriate than AAV in many cases. I used AAV simply because it's recognized and "overlaps" IUVE in the area of interest. – Hot Licks May 16 '16 at 01:49
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    @AmI English has occasions where the deliberate use of the double negative is standard and logical. Not here though. – deadrat May 16 '16 at 02:08
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    @HotLicks It's not confined to the US. – deadrat May 16 '16 at 02:09
  • @deadrat Would you please give me one or two examples of double "logical" negations? – Franks V. Maia May 16 '16 at 02:10
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    @deadrat - I wouldn't mind having a US-specific term, regardless. There are a number of usages (eg, take/bring swapping) that are common and broadly distributed across the country, and it's both inaccurate and prejudicial to lump them into AAV. – Hot Licks May 16 '16 at 02:13
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    I also don't consider this to be AAV, I think it's a also common among "rednecks", along with things like teach/learn swapping. I consider it a southern vernacular that has become slang in many communities. – Barmar May 16 '16 at 20:13
  • Double negatives are common in spoken British English, too, and have been since at least Middle English. People are taught to avoid it in schools but it has sticking power... – Steve Cooper May 22 '16 at 08:39

2 Answers2

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It's a double negative. Like e.g. ain't, it's not considered "proper" English but is in wide colloquial use (both now and when Asimov wrote Foundation).

Cheezmeister
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English has always used double negatives for emphasis. There are examples from Chaucer, for example;

He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde / In all his lyf unto no maner wight

(“He never yet no vileness didn’t say / In all his life to no manner of man”)

The idea that two negatives make a positive is a late invention (and to my mind not mathematically justifiable in English)

It's persisted in conversation but it was declared uncouth by grammarians in the eighteenth century 'Better educated' people avoid it so it's used to indicate a lower educational status.

Steve Cooper
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