not followed by nobody (double negation)

Question

I wrote this question in a funny and entertaining way, if you want to go straight to the question go to the end.

Last day I was in a bar with some friends and they were talking about soccer (for which I have zero interest) so I started looking around the decoration and saw a neon light with the sentence:

A little party never killed nobody

The You had one job meme automatically appeared in my mind and I though they probably ordered a custom made neon with an incorrect sentence on it.

A quick search however revealed me that there's a song with that title and there exist neon lights with that sentence, so it was not custom made (this doesn't mean the sentence is correct, but at least it's not just this bar to be blamed, so the owner will avoid the walk of shame for now)

So my question is: Is it correct to say A little party never killed nobody? To me the double negation means that it actually did kill somebody (which maybe is a humor hidden message the sentence tries to transmit)

Is the sentence having a hidden meaning? A poetic license? Or is just plain wrong English?

It's idiomatic casual/slang English. – Hot Licks Dec 08 '20 at 14:54 — Hot Licks, Dec 08 '20 at 14:54

niamulbengali · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-08T14:23:49.443

1

Negative Concord

This "quirk" of speech is actually quite well-documented. It is called negative concord.

However, I agree with Your Dictionary:

Double negatives are generally discouraged in English because they are considered to be poor grammar and they can be confusing.

"A little party never killed nobody" just means "A little party never killed anybody."

To understand double-negatives, just get rid of either negative:

A little party ever killed nobody. (A little party killed nobody)

A little party never killed somebody.

However, the best practice is abandoning their usage because they are ungrammatical.

edited Dec 08 '20 at 14:23

answered Dec 08 '20 at 14:15

niamulbengali

1,596

Thanks. The question was made in a humorous way, but I was wondering if there was a hidden reason or just some colloquial English used on songs. – Elerium115 Dec 08 '20 at 14:18
1

Okay, I must admit the world would be less fun without twice-negative sentences. There is no hidden reason as far as I know. Also, I have found the name for this phenomenon: negative concord. – niamulbengali Dec 08 '20 at 14:22
Please check that your intended answers are not merely repeats of those to earlier duplicates. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '20 at 14:56
1

@edwin-ashworth Thank you, I will keep an eye out for duplicates from now. – niamulbengali Dec 08 '20 at 15:08
Negation is *much* more complicated than worrying about "twice-negative" sentences. Ain't nobody gonna get no inspiration nohow from "double negation". – John Lawler Dec 08 '20 at 16:44
Negation is *much* more complex than "double negation". Don't worry about what's ungrammatical; if there's a negative around, ain't nobody gonna figure out nothing simply. – John Lawler Dec 08 '20 at 16:47

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 08 '20 at 14:39

0

You must look at the connotations of this double negation. It wants to state that it belongs to a non-pedant register of language with little care for grammar and rules. As if saying:

Stop being so uptight, relax, have a break, it won't kill you.

answered Dec 08 '20 at 14:39

fev

33,009

Please check that your intended answers are not merely repeats of those to earlier duplicates. And look at the quality of the accepted answer, and the highest-voted one, at the duplicate in this case. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 08 '20 at 14:56

not followed by nobody (double negation)

2 Answers2

Negative Concord