You couldn't fail to miss Melania

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Mr John Kelly, an attorney for Melania Trump, reading out a statement concerning why she has just scored nearly $3million in a London libel suit (reported here in The Guardian; I reproduce the use of "right-handed" found in the article, despite its oddness):

The article was illustrated with an old photograph of the claimant standing naked with her front against a wall but her face turned towards the camera. The photograph was prominently displayed and occupied almost the entire right-handed side of page 15. Readers of the newspaper could not fail to miss the article.

But of course Mr Kelly means they could not fail to see it. Or could not possibly miss it. Semantic overnegation again, this time in a prepared statement by an attorney dealing crucially with details of language and meaning. Amazing. But richly documented in scores of previous posts here on Language Log.



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