double negatives

My entries to date have all been about the web. It's time to talk about writing, or in this case language in general.

I got a good laugh when I saw this cartoon on Facebook. Judging by how many different places it shows up in a Google image search, it has certainly made the rounds. And I am one of those who would initially agree with the perspective of the jurors.


Many experts in the English language would disagree with this interpretation of the defendant's statement, however. They point out that English is not math or logic, and a double negative can be used for emphasis.

In her video course English Grammar Boot Camp, the instructor, Anne Curzan, discusses double negatives in detail. Curzan says that while there are sentences in English where the negatives do in fact cancel each other out, a double, or multiple, negative is also frequently used for emphasis. Similar to “I didn’t do nuthin’” she uses the example, “We don’t have nothing to hide.” She says it is clear that the meaning is “We have nothing to hide,” and not “We have something to hide.”

Curzan points out that double negatives used for emphasis can be found in Chaucer. She tells us that you can find double negatives used for emphasis in Shakespeare as well. In As You Like It, Celia says: “I cannot go no further.”

She says that she has two answers when someone says, “But when you multiply two negatives you get a positive,” to support the idea that two negatives in a sentence cancel each other out.

1. “Language is not math.”
2. “OK fine, let’s do math. If you have two negatives in math and you add them, what do you get? You actually get a bigger negative.”

So if we listen to the defendant on the witness stand saying “I didn’t do nuthin’” I guess we’re actually going to have to acquit after all.
 

the dominance of mobile

My last two entries were about ways to create your web site. I wrote about using a cloud-based service to simplify the process and I said that you can still hand-code your site if you so choose. The cloud-based services take care of optimizing your site for mobile devices (in some cases requiring you to do some tweaking). I wrote that if you do your own coding you need to take advantage of free tools out there to make sure your site displays properly on mobile devices.

We all know that mobile devices are ubiquitous, and if you don't use a mobile device yourself you nonetheless constantly see people out in public focused on their iPhone or Android device. How dominant is mobile? One study says that in December 2013 desktop computers had a 47% share of digital media time. By December 2015 that had decreased to 35%. In the same time period mobile's share increased from 53% to 65%.

The study says that most e-commerce transactions still take place on a PC, but if you have a web site to create visibility for your business or nonprofit, the odds are better than even that a visitor is going to get to your web site using a mobile device.

Some experts use the phrase "mobile first." I'm not sure that I like that mindset. I believe that it is essential for your web site to be attractive and usable on a desktop or laptop. At the same time mobile needs to be integral to your web design strategy. Your site needs to be responsive: accessible on any device of any size.

Whether you choose to use a drag-and-drop cloud-based service or whether you elect to hand-code your site, it's important to keep mobile on your mind all the time.