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Until the modern period of English, a string of negatives reinforced each other. When we said "not no one, not nohow" it meant "absolutely no one at any time." Under the misguidance of "experts" who held that English should be forced to comply with the rules of Latin grammar, in which a series of negatives cancel each other, the "double negative" became an emphatic positive. Thus "not no one" now means "many people."

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