Misplaced Pages

In mathematics there is this wise advice: "If you do not understand a problem, then there is some more simple problem that it depends on that you also do not understand. Find that simpler problem, and solve that." So because the sentence you ask about is complex and hard to understand, let us first begin with this much simpler sentence:

• (1) "Jiang Hou disagreed with Pang Nuan."

It's a little confusing in English, but for our purposes here this simpler sentence can mean two very different things:

• (1a) "Jiang Hou said Pang Nuan was wrong." or
• (1b) "Jiang Hou thought Pang Nuan was wrong." ( But he didn't express that opinion. )

Next we need to ask what happens when we bring the meaning of the past-tense contradiction phrase "did not" into sentences (1a) and (1b).

It's a strangely complicated rule in English, but when the two words "did not" are introduced into a declarative sentence about the past, the two words are placed just before the declarative sentence's main past-tense verb, and then that main past-tense verb is revised to be conjugated in the present-tense. The sentence taken as a whole nevertheless continues to describe something that occurred in the past, because the past-tense verb phrase "did not" carries the burden of informing the listener that it is something in the past that is being discussed.

This rule is so complicated that I want to give just one example here, to make it very clear how the rule works:

• Declarative statement with a past-tense verb: "Shao Lin walked to the temple."
• Contradiction using the past-tense phrase "did not": "Shao Lin did not walk to the temple."

Do you see what happens? The past tense verb phrase "did not" is inserted before the sentence's past-tense verb "walked", and then "walked" is restated as the present tense verb "walk". The effect of "did not" is to contradict the sentence's main past-tense verb, and to then cause that main past-tense verb to be restated into the present tense.

This example, please note, says nothing at all about whether Shao Lin went to the temple. It only says that he didn't walk to it. He could have traveled to the temple on horseback, in an oxcart, by bicycle, or some other way, or he could have instead taken a boat to the market or simply stayed at home. There is just not enough information in the resulting sentence "Shao Lin did not walk to the temple" for us to know any of those other things.

Fortunately, the rather complex sentence "Shao Lin did not walk to the temple" can be made more clear by expressing the identical idea with this simpler sentence,

• "It is false that Shao Lin walked to the temple."

It would be a little unusual to use this exact sentence in English conversation, by the way, but that's just because it's not a popular way to state the idea. It is nevertheless a perfectly correct English sentence.

This same complicated process by which a declarative past-tense sentence is contradicted can also be applied to our earlier example, to achieve the same kind of result. This can be seen by imagining a conversation between two friends who are discussing Jiang Hou and Pang Nuan:

• First friend: "Jiang Hou disagreed with Pang Nuan."
• Second friend: "No, that is false: Jiang Hou did not disagree with Pang Nuan."

If the second friend in our example is correct, then we can combine and condense the two friends statements into a single sentence that tells the truth of the matter:

• (2) "It is false that Jiang Hou disagreed with Pang Nuan."

We're still not finished, though, because just as I showed in (1a) and (1b) above, sentence (2) can also mean either of two different things for our purposes here:

• (2a) "It is false that Jiang Hou said Pang Nuan was wrong.", or
• (2b) "It is false that Jiang Hou thought Pang Nuan was wrong."

Now these two sentences are pretty clear: The first interprets "disagreed" from sentence (2) to inform us us that Jiang Hou did not say something. Likewise, the second interpretation of "disagreed" from sentence (2) just tells us that Jiang Hou did not think something.

But like the Shao Lin example from above, neither of these two sentences, (2a) or (2b), tells us anything at all about what, if anything, Jiang Hou did say or did think about Pang Nuan. They merely tell us what he didn't say or didn't think.

In other words, there is simply not enough information in either sentence for us to make any guesses like these:

• Jiang Hou did not say Pang Nuan was wrong, but he probably thought so.
• Jiang Hou did not think Pang Nuan was wrong, he thought Pang Nuan was right.
• Jiang Hou did not think Pang Nuan was wrong, he just thought Pang Nuan's statement was irrelevant.

We don't know whether Shao Lin went to the temple, and we don't know what, if anything, Jiang Hou said or thought about Pang Nuan. We only know what he didn't say or think.

Now before we go on, let us substitue "I" for Jiang Hou, and let us substitue "you" for Pang Nuan. This gives:

• (3a) "It is false that I said you were wrong."
• (3b) "It is false that I thought you were wrong."

Just as in the previous examples, if I were to say either of these sentences I would merely be stating a negative. I would only be communicating the fact that I didn't say something or didn't think something. There is not enough information in either sentence for you to know what, if anything, I did say or think.

There's not enough information present in the two sentences to validly infer any additional meanings from them, in other words. For example, they do not imply any of the following:

• "I didn't think you were wrong, I just have no opinion on the subject."
• "I didn't think you were wrong, I'm just neutral on the subject."
• "I didn't think you were wrong; I thought you were right."
• "I didn't think you were wrong, but now I do."
• "I didn't think you were wrong, I just didn't understand what you meant."
• "I didn't think you were wrong, I just thought your statement was irrelevant."
• "I didn't say you were wrong, I didn't express an opinion at all."
• "I didn't say you were wrong, but someone else said so."
• "I didn't say you were wrong, I said you expressed yourself unclearly."

The analysis I wrote above is correct, but it is an analysis of only the literal meaning of the sentence. I probably paid too little attention to its connotation. I must tell you that most native speakers of English probably would say that the sentence does connote some mild agreement, some weak or qualified support for the other person's words, ideas, or actions.

I thought it important to mention this because I've thought more about the present-tense sentence "I don't disagree with you." Someone who says "I don't disagree with you" almost certainly wants to express mild support, at least, for the other's words, ideas, or actions. I admit it is rather strange that the present-tense sentence connotes some agreement, while the past-tense "I didn't disagree with you" does not necessarily connote agreement, or connotes only weaker or partial agreement. ( English is full of such strange rules, I'm sorry to say. ) Perhaps some of the following comments will help explain.

I've already mentioned several reasons why "I didn't disagree with you" is complex, but I failed to mention the most important reason for its complexity: The sentence is a kind of double negative; it might be more exactly called a litotes.

Most negative sentences have only one word to indicate negation, e.g. the word "not" is most often used. But "I did not disagree with you" has more than one negation; the prefix "dis" in "disagree" also indicates negation. ( This can be seen clearly in the two sentences "The room is in order" and "The room is in disorder"; the first means the room is clean and ready for use while the second means it is not, it is messy or chaotic in some way. )

When a sentence that already contains a negation, like "dis", has another negation added to it, however, the meaning becomes much less clear. Consider adding "not" to our example "The room is in disorder" to get the sentence "The room is not in disorder". This is an example of a kind of double-negative. A person who has asked to rent a hotel room might reasonably reply, "I don't want a room that is 'not in disorder'. I want a room that is in order!"

Because this "double negative" pattern of speaking is so ambiguous, most teachers would say it should be avoided if a speaker wants to be clearly understood. Sometimes people use the pattern when they do not want to be very clear. A politician might use it, for example ;-) The author George Orwell ridiculed the pattern in his famous example, "The not unblack dog chased the not unwhite rabbit across the not ungreen field." ( The prefix "un" negates the words black, white, and green, here. ) All native speakers of English would see that sentence as a silly, ridiculous one. Unfortunately, it is also a proper sentence, it is proper English grammar, in other words.

So you understand, now, what I meant when I wrote earlier that such sentences do not really carry enough meaning to understand them fully? When I wrote that "you have to ask for more information" to understand the speaker's exact intention? If someone said, "The dog was not unblack" it would probably best to reply, "What color was it, then?" instead of assuming the speaker means it was gray, or that it was only black in spots, and also had different colors on other places on its body. Or perhaps it would be better still to reply: "Please don't talk that way. You give me a headache." ;-)

Finally, after I posted my first reply, above, I noticed that the Misplaced Pages article for double negative mentions a sentence that's very close to the one you first asked about. Here's what it says:

... For instance, "I do not disagree" could be said to mean, "I certainly agree" if stated in an affirmative manner; this is an example of litotes. However, if stated in a cautious manner, "I do not disagree" can also be used to mean, "You may be right, although I am not sure," or "There is no mistake in what you say, but there is more to it than that." Similarly, the phrase "Mr. Jones was not incompetent" may be used to mean either "Mr. Jones was very competent" or "Mr. Jones was competent, but not brilliantly so."

I hope I haven't confused you with all this! The sentence you asked about would also be quite difficult for most native speakers of English to analyze, discuss, and understand correctly.

Perhaps the best rule would be to avoid speaking with this pattern yourself, and to ask for more information about the meaning when someone else speaks any sentence that has this "double negative" pattern.