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double negative ?

"if you don't do something"
is this technically a double negative.
should it be "if you don't do anything"

or does it not matter..

Re: double negative ?

It makes no difference: "something" is not a negative word, so your example does not contain a "double negative". Consider these two examples:

(1) "If you don't do something, we'll all get caught".
(2) "If you don't do nothing, we'll all get caught".

In (1) the meaning is that something must be done to avoid us all being caught. "Something" is positive, and overall it is a positive statement with only one negative expression, "don't". By contrast, in (2) "nothing" is negative, so we now have the two negatives "don't" and "nothing", making a double negative.

There is a widespread tendency among Standard English speakers to condemn double negatives as being 'illogical' and 'inferior' and evidence of ignorance and illiteracy. It is argued that by a rule of logic, two negatives cancel each other out to make a positive, so that (2) would mean "If you do something, we'll all get caught". Strictly speaking, that argument is invalid, as can be seen in other languages such as French and Italian and Spanish. For example, Italian non means "not" and nessuno means "nobody", but the meaning of Non ti credo nessuno is "Nobody believes you", not "Nobody doesn't believe you".

Having said all that, if you speak 'Standard English', then I strongly advise you to avoid using "double negatives", since they can only be considered non-standard in Present-day English.

PaulM