Bad spelin'

Really. I was always taught the term double negative referred to two negatives in a clause, not a sentence. In the sentence in question the two nots are in different clauses.

Thank you. I am enlightened.

Hmmm, it might depend on the language maybe. I just don't know.

Looked the web and found this. I'm not saying you're wrong, since I don't know for sure what's right or not but this what I though was right though.
Quoted from LEO

OXFORD Dictionary

The point is that in a double negative the two negatives cancel (or we might even say negate ) each other and so make a positive, as in 'I haven't got no apples'. That didn't happen in the sentence that was questioned.

Yes it did.

Take the 'not's out, and you have:

"I'm talking about people who's first language is English."

Which means the same thing.

Dan

Thanks Dan. That's also my understanding of a double negative. Or at least it was, now I'm not so sure that I'm not confused.

Ah isn't English grand. At least in Dutch you only have to worry about gender and d or t at the end of a verb .

Stefan, there are others who post here who have Dyslexia, Don in Winnipeg is one, but there are others.

As I said as long as I can understand what a poster is getting at I'll read their post. Sometimes though it is not easy due to lack of punctuation, poor grammar and bad spelling.

I'm surprised George hasn't joined in this. Where is he :

A mis-spelled word which is obviously a typing error does not bother me at all. However, I am annoyed when the whole post seems to indicate that the poster just doesn't care.

Some people don't use punctuation at all - no full stops, no Capital letters. That is annoying, and often takes a lot of guesswork to figure out what the poster is saying.

We should all make an effort to use proper and correct language, out of respect to our fellow members.

I don't know what is going on in other countries, but here in Québec, the government thought it would be bad for the kids self esteem to correct them all the time, so they decided if it sounded the same, it was all right.

Now they are beginning to realize they made a mistake. Kids entering university can't read or write anymore. They have to take extra classes to learn proper use of the French language so their professors can figure out what they are writing.

To make things worst, those same people in high government offices decided that kids would graduate even if they don't make the grades to avoid bruising their egos. Now, kids are graduating from college, and they can't even write their names or do simple arithmetic.

Poor education, lazyness or dyslexia, thats where the problem lies (or should that be lays?:blush

They make the same mistake in Norway.
For dyslectic people there is an excuse, for poor education maybe some (blame the government), but for lazyness none.

Yves, my niece managed to get a degree, while she seems only to be able to write textspeak. Whenever I get an e-mail from her I have to work out what the heck she means since vowels seem no longer to feature in her spelling, never mind punctuation. I asked my brother about this and he said the school she went to took the same view as the Québec government. Seemingly the uni she went to took the same attitude. How she ever manages to write job applications is beyond me.
She has a job btw, so either they accept textspeak or she really can write properly, just chooses not to.

I suppose I should call it txtspk too!

Edit: comment added.

I'm glad to hear your niece was able to find a job, but here in Québec, I see too many young adults flipping burgers at McD. because they can't find a job due to lack of education or poor education. Makes me wonder where we're going to end up as a country.

Is that because the sum total English taught is

"Do you want fries with that?"

I suffer from bad spelling, my spell checker is standing next to me right now pointing out my deficiencies.

Bless her!

I've just shown him how to spell check on the computer...

Standing staring over his shoulder thinking

"Well delete is not spelt like that...There isn't a deleat in the English dictionary..."

Though I regularly suffer from bouts of Blondeness in my lessons at college... Oh well...