Schools tell how "good English" ought to be spoken, but rarely take the trouble to describe how the English language is spoken. For example, we are all told that double negative makes an affirmative, although nowhere is there any record of an officer of law holding a man on a charge of murder on the grounds that since the prisoner had said, "I ain't killed nobody," his words were actually a confession that he had killed somebody.
-- Language in thought and action, by S. I. Hayakawa
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