Note that commas must be used to separate the negative phrases in these examples. The ban on using double negatives to convey emphasis does not apply when the second negative appears in a separate phrase or clause, as in I will not surrender, not today, not ever or He does not seek money, no more than he seeks fame.Nonetheless, the reinforcing double negative remains an effective construction in writing dialogue or striking a folksy note. This view was taken up by English teachers and has since become enshrined as a convention of Standard English. In their eagerness to make English conform to formal logic, they conceived and promulgated the notion that two negatives destroy each other and make a positive. But in spite of this noble history, grammarians since the Renaissance have objected to this form of negative reinforcement employing the double negative. Thus Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales could say of the Friar, "Ther nas no man nowher so vertuous," meaning "There was no man anywhere so virtuous," and Shakespeare could allow Viola in Twelfth Night to say of her heart, "Nor never none / Shall mistress of it be, save I alone," by which she meant that no one except herself would ever be mistress of her heart. In fact, multiple negatives have been used to convey negative meaning in English since Old English times, and for most of this period, the double negative was wholly acceptable. He meant, of course, "You haven't heard anything yet." Some sixty years later President Reagan taunted his political opponents by saying "You ain't seen nothin' yet." These famous examples of double negatives that reinforce (rather than nullify) a negative meaning show clearly that this construction is alive and well in spoken English. "You ain't heard nothin' yet," said Al Jolson in 1927 in The Jazz Singer, the first talking motion picture.Thus a not infrequent visitor seems likely to visit less frequently than a frequent visitor. In these expressions the double negative conveys a weaker affirmative than would be conveyed by the positive adjective or adverb by itself. Readers will also assign an affirmative meaning to constructions that yoke not with an adjective or adverb that begins with a negative prefix such as in- or un-, as in a not infrequent visitor or a not unjust decision. Readers coming across a sentence like He cannot do nothing will therefore interpret it as an affirmative statement meaning "He must do something" unless they are prompted to view it as dialect or nonstandard speech. Colloquialisms can include aphorisms, idioms. Colloquialisms are usually defined in geographical terms, meaning that they are often defined by their use within a dialect, a regionally-defined variant of a larger language. This is called litotes in rhetorical theory, and something Austen was adept at.Usage Note: It is a truism of traditional grammar that double negatives combine to form an affirmative. Here’s a quick and simple definition: Colloquialism is the use of informal words or phrases in writing or speech. Ironically, understatement can have a nett effect of focusing our mind on something, and so while it de-emphasises on one level, it actually ephasises at a subconcious level. She tends to use them with a certain gently mocking wryness, as again this example shows, so while a stock phrase rather than being Austen's construct, it is a phrase that suits her style well. Austen's own double-negative constructions are generally of the sort of de-emphasising use for undertatement I suggest may have led to not unseldom coming into existence, and so it suits her well. Not that Austen didn't use no double negation of her own. In any case, by Austen's time it was an idiom best understood as having its own definition, rather than through analysing its components. That though is a matter of what happened with the word some 150 years or more before Austen. "not unheard of" means something is indeed heard of, but de-emphasises that so as to suggest there may still be a rarity), that got muddled in an attempt to do so with a word that best fits through single-negation. These famous examples of double negatives that reinforce (rather than nullify) a negative meaning show clearly that this construction is alive and well in spoken English. Of the various reasons we may have to use double-negation, I suspect the aim here was de-emphasis (i.e. double negative synonyms, double negative pronunciation, double negative translation, English dictionary definition of double negative. It notes further, "Dutch niet onzelden is similarly used." and its citations range from before 1657 to 1882 ( Pride and Prejudice was of course published in 1813, well within that range). Not unseldom (misused for), not rarely, not infrequently. Indeed, the OED's entry for unseldom defines it solely in terms of this phrase: Not unseldom is in fact a stock phrase, predating Austen, and meaning "not rarely" or "not infrequently".
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