I have seen the following sentence: I can't get no satisfaction.
Can we say ''don't/can't [verb] no...''? I would like an explanation about this expression.
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I'm not trying to get the meaning of the sentence ''I can't get no satisfaction'', but the explanation about the expression ''don't/can't [verb] no...'' rather.– ArchaCommented Jul 1, 2014 at 22:50
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@Archa see my edited answer.– Masoud MohammadiCommented Jul 1, 2014 at 23:24
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1Related: english.stackexchange.com/a/8778 english.stackexchange.com/a/31682– tchrist ♦Commented Jul 2, 2014 at 3:14
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2 Answers
Grammatically it is wrong because we can't use negative form of the verb with no.
the correct form is in example below, but in lyrics and musics they don't care about grammar that much.
E1.I can get no satisfaction.
E2.I can't get any satisfaction.
for more info go to Grammarly.
answered Jul 1, 2014 at 23:08
The use of the double negative has come about in English in the speech patterns of people for whom English is their second language. In many languages (re)iteration denotes emphasis and such is the intention here. The parsing becomes a problem for purists because the technically correct meaning of such a backward-spoken statement is the opposite of what the statement is intended to mean.
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This is completely mistaken. Some non-standard versions of English use negative concordance, like “I can’t get nothing done around here.” The negatives merely agree; they reinforce but they do not cancel. This is completely different from an actual double negative like “Me, I can’t not get anything done,” where the negatives cancel out because they are juxtaposed as “not not”.– tchrist ♦Commented Jul 2, 2014 at 3:07