What's up with all the double negatives?

I'm getting increasingly annoyed with all the double negatives being thrown around in american english. For example, when someone says "I haven't seen nothing", which apparantly means that the person who said it hasn't seen anything, but it REALLY means that he has seen SOMETHING because he didn't see nothing. I mean, this can't be correct, can it? English is not my maternal language, so I really can't say for sure, but it sounds stupid as hell.

There ain't no way this shouldn't have been a blog post.

Who cares.

You do know english is the most frequently changing language on earth.

English was made to adapt. All of those ENGLISH drama queens *Ohhh look at me. I got an english degree now i am useless cause the language i spent studying has now changed."

Golyyy..

Who CARES

I think Pirate essentially showed this thread who's boss. Brilliant. :lol:

Who cares.

You do know english is the most frequently changing language on earth.

English was made to adapt. All of those ENGLISH drama queens *Ohhh look at me. I got an english degree now i am useless cause the language i spent studying has now changed."

Golyyy..

Who CARES

There ain't no way this shouldn't have been a blog post.

Pirate700

From a useful blog I found:

Q: Some people argue that a double negative (as in I can't get no satisfaction or I ain't got no money) makes a positive, following the logic that if you don't not have something, you actually have it. What do you think about this claim?
A: Languages don't follow rigorous mathematical logic but have a practical use: communication. When you want to express that something is not the case, you usually want to make sure the person you are talking to gets the difference (think about I love you vs. I don't love you or John is alive vs. John isn't alive). Multiple negation does exactly that and is perfect standard use in many languages (take something like the French Je ne sait pas – literally I no know not). In Black Vernacular English negative concord (I don't know nothing about nobody) is normal and Geoffrey Chaucer frequently used multiple negations in The Canterbury Tales – at the time this simply wasn't considered "wrong" in English.

http://introling.ynada.com/session-1-thirteen-questions-about-language

Credentials of blog owner: http://cornelius.ynada.com/index.html#teaching

Yeah its lame.

Who cares.

You do know english is the most frequently changing language on earth.

English was made to adapt. All of those ENGLISH drama queens *Ohhh look at me. I got an english degree now i am useless cause the language i spent studying has now changed."

Golyyy..

Who CARES

There ain't no way this shouldn't have been a blog post.

Pirate700

:lol: win!

Who cares.

You do know english is the most frequently changing language on earth.

English was made to adapt. All of those ENGLISH drama queens *Ohhh look at me. I got an english degree now i am useless cause the language i spent studying has now changed."

Golyyy..

Who CARES

GrandTheftDog

You are kidding, right?

Honestly, it annoys me too, but it's hardly a problem outside of the internet. Here in the midwest, I seldom hear people say things like that. Down South it might be an entirely different situation, though.

Who cares.

You do know english is the most frequently changing language on earth.

English was made to adapt. All of those ENGLISH drama queens *Ohhh look at me. I got an english degree now i am useless cause the language i spent studying has now changed."

Golyyy..

Who CARES

There ain't no way this shouldn't have been a blog post.

Pirate700

:lol: pure genius

There ain't no way this shouldn't have been a blog post.

Pirate700

lol

You're right, it isn't correct.super_mario_128