Multiple negation: over-reaching again
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Following up on Never fails: semantic over-achievers, Language Log reader John O'Meara told me that he recently received a gift voucher on which one of the legally binding conditions is the following:
6. Cash nor credit will not be issued for balance of gift voucher not redeemed in full.
He has absolutely no clear sense of what this does (or does not) entitle him to. Nor does Language Log. Not. One stares at it, and although one can guess at what was probably supposed to be the policy, one fails to extract a statement of it from the above wording using just the syntax and semantics of one's native language. At least, that's how it is for me (your mileage may differ). In particular, if you make the initial noun phrase grammatical by prefixing neither, you get something that is almost certainly the opposite of what was meant (Neither cash nor credit will not be issued for balance of gift voucher not redeemed in full means that both cash and credit will be issued).
I think if I were asked to advise a court on how a dispute over this clause of the conditions should be resolved, I would have to say that, on the basis of the language alone, the company doesn't actually have a policy.
The resolution would no doubt be by guessing that originally they wanted to say Cash will not be issued for balance of gift voucher not redeemed in full, which is fine, and then they decided to add Nor will credit be issued, which would be a fine continuation, and then someone tried to glue the two clauses together and botched it. Which only shows that it is important for businesses to have people on their payroll who can handle the syntax and semantics of English with confidence and clarity.
[Comments are closed; expressing your opinions is all very well, but you might botch it, and then where would we be.]