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

[Carol]

Mike wrote:
> How would y'all translate a triple negative? 
> 
> I recently overheard a woman on a cell phone telling someone: 
> "I ain't never not told him ..."
> So, did she tell him or not? 
> 
> This was "up north" PC. ;-)
>
Carol responds:

Well, *logically* (or mathematically), three negatives (or any odd
number of negatives) result in a negative, just as two negatives (or
any even number of negatives) result in a positive (-1 x 1 = -1; -1 x
-1 = 1; -1 x -1 x -1 = -1).

Correcting the "ain't" to standard English, we have, "I haven't never
not told him," which is the opposite of "I haven't ever not told him"
or "I have never not told him," both of which, logically, would mean
"I have told him." So her sentence, whatever her intended meaning,
means, logically, "I have never told him."

Carol, who thinks that Mike's experience nicely illustrates the
rationale for banning multiple negatives--they can often result in
confusion for the listener