Hmmmm...

[xarra]

Grammar question of the week (nothing to do with Ian!)

"It doesn't work very well, I don't think" should mean "I think it works well' due to the double negative (I don't think it doesn't work very well) but ppl often use it to mean 'I don't think it works very well'...

Why? And how?

Comments

[crashbarrier]

huh!.. thats a painful statement..

"It doesn't work very well" denotes that the thing in questions does not work in some way....

"I don't think" denotes that they aren't thinking it doesn't work well..

this suggests that the situation is a positive one...

This statement would confuse me greatly... ???? and infact does...!!

[xarra]

Yep, but it's something I'd say without thinking about it - it's only thinking about it that I'M confused!

And I don't think I've picked it up from Ian as it's an instinctive turn of phrase... And I can't recall him saying it...

[zeugma]

If it read "I don't think it doesn't work very well", it would mean that it does work well. With the positioning of the "I don't think" the way most people use it, it's a more of a colloquialism-not technically correct, but it's not "meant" to add to the sentence. It's just one of those phrases we tend to tack on out of habit.

[linamishima]

It depends if it's:

"It doesn't work very well, I don't think."
or
"It doesn't work very well, I don't think...."

[anonymous]

This largely depends on tone of voice. Grammatically, the phrase is positive - not that I think it works well, but that I think it's not broken. But some people put the "...I don't think" on in a sarcastic voice, which then can mean "actually I disagree entirely, and it works superbly". Alternatively, the tag, "I don't think." is a local dialect that can be short for "or at least I don't think it does." So a lot of people say it and the full form is "It doesn't work very well, or at least I don't think it does