The English Oracle

"I give nothing to no-one" or "I do not give anything to anyone"

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Chapters
00:00 &Quot;I Give Nothing To No-One&Quot; Or &Quot;I Do Not Give Anything To Anyone&Quot;
00:38 Accepted Answer Score 6
01:16 Answer 2 Score 0
01:28 Thank you

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Full question
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Tags
#sentence #negation

#avk47



ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 6


The only existing answer is at best misleading.

"I do not give anything to anyone" is standard English

"I give nothing to no-one" is a double negative - not uncommon, but considered "non-standard".

"This humour doesn't hurt anyone" is standard English.

"This humour hurts nobody" is standard English.

Note that the only "non-standard" variant above is easily recast to full acceptability:

"I give nothing to anyone" is standard English.

There's no difference in meaning whether the negation is applied to the verb (give/do not give, hurts/doesn't hurt) or to the object (anything/nothing, anyone/nobody).




ANSWER 2

Score 0


To say 'I give nothing to no one' is to say, 'there's no one I don't give something to', or in other words, if you give nothing to no one, you give something to everyone.