Double Negatives — The Grammar of Nothing: Double Negatives
Grammar: Double negatives — standard, rhetorical, and non-standard uses
Free ESL grammar exercise on double negatives themed around the grammar of nothing: double negatives. Printable worksheet from classplan.ai.
What's on this worksheet
A Level 6 (proficiency) ESL grammar exercise on media, practising double negatives — standard, rhetorical, and non-standard uses. The worksheet has a short reading excerpt, a grammar reference and graded practice items.
From the reading
Today, the double negative occupies a peculiar position. In formal written English, it functions as a sophisticated rhetorical device: the litotes, a deliberate understatement achieved by negating the opposite of what you mean.
Grammar: Double Negatives
- Litotes — formal hedge
- Negating the opposite to understate. The proposal is not without merit. — implies it has merit, carefully.
- Emphatic dialect form
- Double negative for intensity in spoken varieties. I ain't never doing that again. — means strong refusal.
Sample items
- The committee's decision was ______ without controversy.
- Rewrite in standard formal English: 'I don't know nothing about it.'
- The merger carried risks that were ______ uncommon in the industry.
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