Dialects & Accents (Was Re: Subject-Verb agreement with compound subjects)

[Carol]

Carol earlier: 

> > BTW, logic is the basis of many of the rules of grammar that CJ 
finds so objectionable. For example, in math(s), two negatives make a
positive, so, logically, a double negative is a positive: "I don't
want none" means "I want some." Of course, the restriction on double
negatives deprives us of such gems as "Nor this is not my nose,
neither," one of my favorite Shakespearean lines.
> 
Potioncat responded:
> Erm...I don't think so. If I said, "No, thank you ma'am, I don't
want none," It would mean I did not want any.
<snip>
 
> Double negatives may translate differently out west or up north.

Carol responds:

I didn't mean that the person using a double negative intends it to
indicate a positive. (Sheesh, that sounds pompous!) IOW, a person who
says "I don't want none" really means "I don't want *any*" even though
he's saying that he doesn't want "none." I'm just saying that the
prescriptive grammarians banned double negatives in the first place
(with the possible exception of the kind Geoff was talking about, as
in "not unhappy," in which case the speaker or writer is perfectly
aware that "not" and "un-" cancel each other) because they were trying
to make English logical. If I don't want *none*, I must want
*some*--at least if my words are taken literally.

Shakespeare and his contemporaries, like a Southerner speaking in
dialect rather than standard English, used multiple negatives for
emphasis, as in my example, "Nor this is not my nose, neither." We
would say, "And this isn't my nose, either." (The idea is that the
other person is denying an obvious truth.) The Shakespearean version
is more colorful and emphatic, but the modern version is clearer and
more logical. (IMO.)

Anyway, the reason English teachers tell students not to use double
negatives (aside from being "incorrect" according to the rules of
prescriptive grammar) is that they logically mean the opposite of
their intended meaning. Of course, double negatives are often combined
with other errors (actual errors, as in a singular subject with a
plural verb): "He don't want none," for example. The listener knows
perfectly well that the speaker means, "He doesn't want any," but the
speaker sounds, to many people, uneducated or, at the very least,
careless. (Sorry to sound elitist, but many people do judge others on
their educational level, whether we like it or not. In fact, there
would be little point in getting an education if they didn't.)

But I'm the first to admit that Southernisms are colorful, much more
so than the jargon-tinged attempts at formal English that we hear from
a wide range of people as the result of pop psychology. The sample
edit I just finished has a husband asking his wife how they can
schedule "quality time together on a regular basis"!!!! Whatever
happened to, "We need more time together, babe"?

To get back to "speaking Southern," "it don't make *me* no never mind"
can't be made grammatical ("It doesn't make *me* any never mind"
doesnt work) and is delicious and memorable in itself (I still recall
the circumstances in which I heard it and who said it even though it
happened in 1970). Our standard English version, "It doesn't matter to
*me*" ("me" has to be emphasized to achieve the effect of the original
sentence) is clear but boring and "I don't give a damn" is clear and
emphatic but trite (and leaves out "me").

If only we could combine the colorful and imaginative language used by
unselfconscious rural people like Reggie (a Southerner living in
"Fetvull, No-Cahlina" in the early seventies) and the precision of
educated speakers who have been taught grammar and rhetoric. These
days, Americans can't even curse imaginatively. (Isn't it the Arabs
who make that a speciality?)

Carol, who used to teach the Six C's to her composition classes:
Clarity, Conciseness, Concreteness, Coherence, Correctness, and Color
and still believes that good writing blends all six elements