When people say 'i didn't do nothing' does that mean they did something.?

Answer 1

Yes. The fools think they're denying liability when in fact they're admitting it.

Answer 2

If we are in a society of grammar freaks, then yes, they do mean that they did something.
Explaination:
Look at the structure of the sentence:
"I didnt (or "I did NOT") do nothing", therefore by NOT doing nothing at all, you can conclude that that person DID something.

To make it a bit easier to understand, just replace " do nothing" with an act that can be considered "doing nothing".
Ex. Lets replace "do nothing" with, lets say, "stay idle"

Original sentence: I didnt DO NOTHING
New sentence: I didn't STAY IDLE

Now its clearer... you can easily infer that the person was indeed doing something, because he WAS NOT IDLE.
_______________

But in "slang talk", "I didn't do nothing", means that the person did nothing. (weird, i know)
Probably people who use this, think that a double negative would make the sentence even more negative.
But what happens really is that they cancel each other out.

Answer 3

"I didn't do nothing" is an unsophisticated declaration of innocence and nothing more. Reading meaning into a statement that was not intended by the speaker is a legal tactic used to infer guilt. Conversely, omitting words with the intention of denying guilt is another version of this same legal tactic. Think "I never had sex with that woman..."
If you feel the need to use legalistic phrasing or long sentences that don't say anything you may have a future in politics or management.

Answer 4

Technically, yes, that is the grammatical correct interpretation (a double negative, the two negatives cancel out and leave you with a positive). Colloquially, it's used as an emphatic, as in: "I absolutely didn't do a single thing". The intent is I did so little, not only did I not do x or y or z, but, in fact, I didn't even do "nothing".

Answer 5

Many people claim that a double negative makes a positive all the time. This is based on a grammar rule that was invented in around the 1700s. The grammarian who wrote the rule used mathematical logic, I suppose, such as how you get a positive number when you multiply two negative numbers.

HOWEVER, this rule ignores two facts:
Double negatives are used in appropriate grammar in many languages of the world.
People don't misunderstand double negatives. It's easy to interpret them as negatives.
The double negative was in use in English long before the rule was created. In fact, I've seen double negatives in use in the writings of Chaucer, one of the most respected English-langauge authors, whose writings predate the grammar rule by hundreds of years.

An example of double negation in another world language:
In Spanish, if I say,
No tengo nada.
Literally "(I) don't have nothing."
This is the appropriate way to say this sentence in Spanish. All educated speakers of Spanish say it this way, and it would be incorrect Spanish to say this version:
No tengo algo.
(I) don't have something.
This sentence would be most appropriately translated in standard English as "I don't have anything." So in Spanish, and actually in basically all the Romance langauges, as well as other languages, double negative is the RIGHT way to do negation. It's just English that's weird, actually.

Depending on what the surrounding context is, two negated elements in English can be interpreted in the sentence as negative or positive.

Here are some examples:

Example 1
A mother enters the kitchen and notices her son surrounded by a huge mess of ceral, flour, and other kitchen goods. He's covered with the material and it's obvious that he created this mess.
Mother: Who created this mess?
Son: I didn't do nothing.

All native speakers of English will understand that the son in this example intends to avoid the blame and claim that he wasn't involved in the mess. In other words, this is the negative interpretation.

Example 2
I'm telling a story about how I entered a really dark house.
Me: I went inside and it was just pitch black. There was no way I could see all the stuff around me.
Listener: You saw nothing?
Me: Well, I didn't see nothing, but all I saw was really dark shapes. Nothing I could pick out.

In this example, the two negatives actually do combine to make a positive. In other words, I am negating the negation. This is the "positive" reading. Notice that in this situation, "nothing" would be said with special emphasis. This type of negation is completely accepted by standard English rules.

Okay, so I've given you examples that demonstrate how double negatives can be used to create both negative and positive meaning, and that they've been in use in the English language for a very long time (hundreds of years). So why do people still make such a big deal about them? Unfortunately, it's because of prejudice. Double negatives are used in dialects of certain groups that people don't like, blacks, for example. So when a person says something like, "I think that the way blacks use double negatives is bad." Well, there's nothing about the actual grammatical form itself that's bad (except for the grammar books told you so). Hundreds of years of evidence from English and examples from other languages show that's not true. Therefore, if people say that the language of black people is bad, it's actually a reflection of the fact that they don't like black people. The language has little to do with it. In fact, if you think about it, black people who use double negatives are actually doing the historically established thing in English, and standard English contains the new thing.

In summary,
Double negatives are a completely normal thing to do, both in English and in other languages.
The rule that prohibits double negative is ungrounded, arbitrary, and fueled by prejudice, not by grammar.
Double negatives are still accepted in some contexts in standard English.

Answer 6

Yes, usually, but not always. Some people often feel guilty without having done anything bad, perhaps they got used to being blamed Sad, isn't it?

Answer 7

Yep 2 negatives make 1 positive.It's simple math.

Answer 8

It means they did not say nothing about what or weather they did anything. You can always deny that what you said was what they thought you said.

Plausible deniability.

Answer 9

Yes, a double negative makes a positive, but they don't realize this.

Answer 10

No, that means they're speaking an English dialect that makes no logical sense. You know what they mean, don't you?