Nothing/Anything

confused   Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:44 pm GMT
Well i have been taught that i should say 'i haven't done anything ,
i didn't see anything', but i see sentences like "i haven't done nothing or i didn't see nothing" are being used to. So which one is (more) appropriate?
Another Guest   Sun Jun 28, 2009 8:28 pm GMT
"I haven't done anything" is definitely more correct, although some would say that there are situations where "I haven't done nothing" is more appropriate (some people find correct English "pretentious"). You should also capitalize your I's.
K. T.   Sun Jun 28, 2009 9:16 pm GMT
Lol.
Johnny   Sun Jun 28, 2009 9:26 pm GMT
"I haven't done nothing" is dialectal. Use the normal form "anything" unless you want to use a particular dialect where double negatives are used as well.
Rick   Sun Jun 28, 2009 11:24 pm GMT
<<some would say that there are situations where "I haven't done nothing" is more appropriate>>

"I haven't done nothing" simply doesn't occur for me, in any situation. If I ever used it, I'd be using it facetiously.
K. T.   Mon Jun 29, 2009 12:05 am GMT
I would only say it if someone accused me of doing nothing.

"I haven't done 'nothing', I answered e-mail requests all day."
Kitsch   Mon Jun 29, 2009 6:26 am GMT
"I haven't done nothing," and, "I didn't see nothing," are both grammatically WRONG. They are examples of Double Negatives and, no matter what dialect of English (English, American, etc.), are incorrect.
Either sentence in written English makes a writer look uneducated and should be avoided at all costs.

In spoken English, it is fairly common for people to say double negatives. This doesn't make it correct to say either, but it could be considered a dialect feature most common to the uneducated, ignorant (people who either don't know that much English or never bothered to learn proper grammar) or lower class/hick/redneck.

I would suggest not saying Double Negatives out loud either. You're best bet is to always use, "I haven't done anything," and "I didn't see anything." You will sound smarter, well spoken and readers/listeners will respect you more.

That's just my two cents, however.
Caspian   Mon Jun 29, 2009 10:20 am GMT
I agree fully with Kitsch.
upstater   Mon Jun 29, 2009 9:07 pm GMT
<<I agree fully with Kitsch. >>

I agree with K.T.

When you say "I haven't done *nothing*" and mean that you've actually been busy, you need to use a special tone of voice on the word "nothing". Of course, you can't really indicate this in writing. sometimes you can use "*" to mean special emphasis or atypical intonation, or whatever.

If you just say the word "nothing" like "anything" in the sentence "I haven't done anything." (i.e. plain accent and intonation), then it borders on being substandard, wrong, informal, etc.
Kitsch   Wed Jul 01, 2009 6:47 pm GMT
Upstater, I didn't mean to make it sound as if K.T. was absolutely wrong (but looking back, it sort of sounds like it).

In that specific example, the word "nothing" is being used as a direct quote of what someone else has said, which is perfectly acceptable as it is not using the word structurally as part of the sentence.

The best way to mark something like that would be how K.T. did, with a pair of 's inside regular quotation marks. Another way, in upstater's case, used is italicizing the word to show the emphasis in the intonation, though the first would probably be better.
Amabo   Wed Jul 01, 2009 7:29 pm GMT
"'I haven't done nothing,' and, 'I didn't see nothing,' are both grammatically WRONG."

No, they're not. They're considered "incorrect" by certain circles which obviously count you among them.

"Either sentence in written English makes a writer look uneducated..."

True.

By the way, the "correct" renditions are "I ain't done nothin'" and "I didn't see nothin'".
Another Guest   Thu Jul 02, 2009 3:01 am GMT
"I haven't done nothing" does not mean "I have done nothing". Using something to mean the opposite of what it says is wrong. If people were to start using "empty" to mean "having a lot of stuff in it", that would be wrong. Not just "considered incorrect [in] certain circles", but plain wrong.
Borat   Thu Jul 02, 2009 3:21 am GMT
<<I would only say it if someone accused me of doing nothing.

"I haven't done 'nothing', I answered e-mail requests all day." >>


That's not double negation, that is an example of one negation negating another negation.

I have not done nothing = I have not [not done anything] = I have [not not] done anything = I have done anything, ie I have done something

Negations annihilate one another in twos like particle/antiparticle pairs.
Borat   Thu Jul 02, 2009 3:29 am GMT
And a double negative is when two negations refer to the same thing without destroying the negative quality of the statement.
In standard English negations annihilate pair-wise, while in some dialects multiple negations can coexist in a stable bosonesque manner without cancelling eachother.
Amabo   Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:19 am GMT
Please, please, spare us all that daffy old mathematics argument about two negatives here. Language doesn't operate like arithmetic.

If double negatives were "wrong" in English grammar because they were somehow "mathematically illogical" then they'd be "wrong" in any language (the laws of mathematics and of logic being universal in nature).

Yet, in French (for example), the situation is entirely reversed: "Standard French" more or less demands a double negative; it is colloquial French where the "ne" particle tends to be dropped in favour of a single negative.