Double negatives in Shakespeare
It shouldn’t be a secret to anyone that a large fraction of the few English grammar rules we’re ever taught were synthesized relatively recently. Our prohibition on double negatives did not exist in Shakespeare’s time, for instance. I long ago read the classic proof of this, a line from Twelfth Night:
Maria: That if one break, the other will…you come speak with her; nor your name is not Master Cesario; nor this is not my nose neither. Nothing that is so is so.
But when you look at the line as a whole, it’s clear that Maria is playing games with language herself, and, in particular, with the idea of negation. Is this example, “not my nose neither,” in any way an outlier?
Clown: Not so, neither
Take a look at INDRI (http://indri6.cs.umass.edu/~strohman/demo/), an open source search engine used for language analysis. They’ve loaded a demo site with Shakespeare’s complete plays, and it’s loads of fun.
Query for “not” and “neither” within three words of each other:
http://indri6.cs.umass.edu/~strohman/demo/query.php?query=%233%28not+neither%29
Twelfth Night
…and, for turning away, let summer bear it out. MARIA You are resolute, then? Clown Not so, neither; but I am resolved on two points. MARIA That if one break, the other will…you come speak with her; nor your name is not Master Cesario; nor this is not my nose neither. Nothing that is so is so. SEBASTIAN I prithee, vent thy folly somewhere else: Thou…
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The Merchant of Venice
…makes me not sad. SALARINO Why, then you are in love. ANTONIO Fie, fie! SALARINO Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad, Because you are not merry: and ’twere as…done too, sir; only ‘cover’ is the word. LORENZO Will you cover then, sir? LAUNCELOT Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty. LORENZO Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the whole…
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Much Ado About Nothing
…BEATRICE Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither. DON PEDRO In faith, lady, you have a merry heart. BEATRICE Yea, my lord; I…that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion? BORACHIO Not so, neither: but know that I have to-night wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero’s gentlewoman, by the…
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Henry VIII
…III. An ante-chamber of the QUEEN’S apartments. Enter ANNE and an Old Lady ANNE Not for that neither: here’s the pang that pinches: His highness having lived so long with her, and she…to hear the city Abused extremely, and to cry ‘That’s witty!’ Which we have not done neither: that, I fear, All the expected good we’re like to hear For this play at…
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….
And the list goes on and on. It’s obvious from this list that Shakespeare routinely uses “neither” for emphasis, as an intensifier of negation, whereas our modern strict grammar holds it as inapplicable except when constituting a disjunction in concert with “nor.”
