Arnold Zwicky's Blog

For the overnegation files…

Heard on NPR’s “Car Talk” on December 6, from a listener seeking help:

I can’t get these cats from not sleeping under the hood [of my car].

As the Language Loggers have said (I paraphrase) over the years, once you dip into the waters of negation, it’s easy to  attract some limpets.

This example could be seen as a blend of two formulations:

I can’t get these cats to not sleep under the hood.

I can’t keep/prevent these cats from sleeping under the hood.

(“get these cats to not sleep under the hood” being explicitly negative, “keep/prevent these cats from sleeping under the hood” only implicitly negative — but then there’s that external negation in can’t).

This entry was posted on December 7, 2009 at 6:42 am and is filed under Negation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.