•June 8, 2022•
By Jim Baumann
NP Guest Writer

Reader David Bruun wanted to talk about double negatives. I’m not uninterested in the topic, so here goes:
“I was listening to the radio several days ago, and a Realtor was being interviewed as to financing a home purchase. The exact quote was as follows: ‘It is important that you were never not late in a mortgage payment.’ There are several of us who disagree, Is this not a double negative? And what does it mean — perhaps that one was never late in a payment?”
David, it IS a double negative, and it makes no sense.
When Mick Jagger sings “I can’t get no satisfaction,” the implication is not that he is 100% happy but that he can’t get ANY satisfaction.
He’s being colloquial, and he landed upon a word that was one syllable short of “any” so the lyric matched the beat. When I wrote that I’m “not uninterested” in the topic of double negatives, I was conveying a modest amount of interest rather than an all-consuming love for them.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.