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CAHSEE ELA 7.3 Writing: Common Errors 204 Views


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CAHSEE ELA Writing: Common Errors Drill 7, Problem 3. What should replace the underlined portion of the sentence, if anything?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

Here's your shmoop du jour... What should replace the underlined portion

00:08

of the below sentence, if anything? When Mary's parents accused her of denting

00:12

the car, she told them she hadn't done nothing.

00:15

Here are the potential answers:

00:22

So... what is this question asking?

00:23

Or ... maybe we should ask... what's it not not asking?

00:26

Yeah... a couple of our answers are vacationing in Double Negativeville.

00:32

A nice place to visit, but we wouldn't not want to live there...

00:39

In A, we've got "hadn't not done." One too many negatives. Scratch it.

00:44

The verb tense is screwy in B, so that one's off our list.

00:48

It really should be, "She HAD done nothing."

00:51

But, as is, Mary's coming across a little bit like Huck Finn.

00:57

The "hadn't done nothing" in the original sentence is a double negative, too, so we

01:01

can't very well leave the sentence as is, either.

01:04

C is the only one that works. Note how they cleverly replaced nothing -- a negative -- with

01:09

ANYTHING... which is only slightly more positive.

01:12

Answer is C.

01:13

As in, "Can't not love not living there."

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