Meaning of "ain't no" in the sentense "This ain't no disco"

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
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Hi,

Could you tlel me what it means?

This ain’t no disco.

Does it mean: This isn’t disco. (?)

Thanks
Liza

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2

It’s the double negative, Liza, that gives a positive statement. It is considered nonstandard, anyway.

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Dear Pamela,

Thanks for your answer. So it means: This is disco (?).

If yes, then what about the song in Hair: ‘I ain’t got no home, ain’t got no shoes…’
Does it also mean: I have home, I have shoes??? But I think the song is about something different.
Sorry, I’m a little bit confused now…

thanks for your answer.

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I’m not a native speaker and I might well be wrong but I think that the double negative does not always mean a positive statement. I think that sometimes it’s just slang, or a kind of uneducated speech when the speaker using the double negative still wants to express a negative idea.
bartleby.com/185/45.html
bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/g … negatives/

Talking about the double negative reminds me of a famous song by Pink Floyd:

We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

I’m not sure that in this case the double negative gives a positive sentence.

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A double/triple negative does not make a positive in English (just like 2 wrongs do not make a right :slight_smile: ) - it is still still a negative; uneducated people use them all the time and get away with it.
For example, Eminem said at one of his interviews “I don’t owe no one of my family nothing”.

I do think that “It ain’t no disco” means “It is not disco”.

PS: despite the fact that using double/triple negatives is considered grammatical (and not using them - ungrammatical) in my mother language, I think it is illogical to use them. I just don’t know how people fetched up inventing them - maybe a desire to negate something as many times in one sentence as possible.

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There are some sources online that claim the double negative can result in a positive statement. But it seems to be mostly used for stressing the negation :lol:

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Until about the 19th century, double, triple and quadruple negatives were used in English for the same reason they are in other languages – to express a negative.

However, in the 18th and 19th century, grammarians began applying mathematical logic to English and began to teach that two negatives make a sentence positive.

Since then, as with other aspects of English grammar, there’s been a difference between standard English and “low colloquial” English. People using standard English will use double negatives to indicate some kind of positive idea, while people using “bad grammar” use any number of negatives in a sentence to express a negative idea.

You get differences like this:

Standard English:
“He doesn’t like nobody.”
= He dislikes some people, but you can’t say that he dislikes everybody.

“Low Colloquial” English:
“He don’t like nobody.”
= He doesn’t like anybody.

Standard English:
“He isn’t nobody.”
= He may not be the most important person in the world, but he’s more important than most people.

“Low Colloquial” English:
“He ain’t nobody.”
= He’s not important, so you don’t need to respect or pay attention to him.

So…

“This ain’t no disco,” is low colloquial English for, “This isn’t a disco.”

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