Dear Log,
So who's annoying me today?
Answer: Thomas Henry Huxley, because he wrote in a letter to George John Romanes (April 28, 1893): "The double negative is Shakspearian. See Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2."
What the hell kind of citation is that? Hamlet act 2 scene 2 is 1,800 lines long!
Huxley, if you hadn't died 107 years ago, I'd send you a mean note.
In University I took a class in Shakespeare with a Jesuit regarded as the toughest teacher [ Walter Ong ] and class in the English Department possibly in the whole school. He's still somewhat famous for his Shakespearean scholarship and, besides tormenting us by making us write papers on such gripping topics as old Bill's use of flowers and birds as symbols, he talked a lot about the use of the double-, triple- and [sometimes] quadruple negative to further emphasize the negative. Hamlet is most often cited when examining this 'feature' of Shakespeare. Don't be mad at Huxley, be mad at Shakespeare whomever he was
