Jane Austen's use of a double negative in 'Pride & Prejudice' (Chapter 28)

Question

Jane Austen once said:

When Mr. Collins said any thing of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her eye on Charlotte.

Now readers of the book will know Mr Collins is pretty shameless and socially inept, yet if we remove the double negative it becomes

When Mr. Collins said any thing of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was seldom, she involuntarily turned her eye on Charlotte.

which is certainly not what the author intended (I assume). Does anybody have an explanation for this?

Answer 1

Not unseldom is in fact a stock phrase, predating Austen, and meaning "not rarely" or "not infrequently".

Indeed, the OED's entry for unseldom defines it solely in terms of this phrase:

not unseldom (misused for), not rarely, not infrequently.

It notes further, "Dutch niet onzelden is similarly used." and its citations range from before 1657 to 1882 (Pride and Prejudice was of course published in 1813, well within that range).

Of the various reasons we may have to use double-negation, I suspect the aim here was de-emphasis (i.e. "not unheard of" means something is indeed heard of, but de-emphasises that so as to suggest there may still be a rarity), that got muddled in an attempt to do so with a word that best fits through single-negation. That though is a matter of what happened with the word some 150 years or more before Austen.

In any case, by Austen's time it was an idiom best understood as having its own definition, rather than through analysing its components.

Not that Austen didn't use no double negation of her own. Austen's own double-negative constructions are generally of the sort of de-emphasising use for undertatement I suggest may have led to not unseldom coming into existence, and so it suits her well. She tends to use them with a certain gently mocking wryness, as again this example shows, so while a stock phrase rather than being Austen's construct, it is a phrase that suits her style well.

Ironically, understatement can have a nett effect of focusing our mind on something, and so while it de-emphasises on one level, it actually ephasises at a subconcious level. This is called litotes in rhetorical theory, and something Austen was adept at.

Answer 2

When an author uses a phrase like "not uncommon" they mean to express something in between common and seldom. It's not uncommon for this to happen, means it happens, not commonly, and not seldom, but somewhere in between.

George RR Martin often has his characters saying "You're not wrong..." This is similar. It usually means something like, "I can't say you're statement is inaccurate, but it's also missing some key points."

Answer 3

I think this question has nothing to do with the grammatical issues related to double negative and/or negative concord.

Jane Austen was fond of using double negatives, for example:

• A little change was not unwelcome for its own sake.
• Her fellow-travellers the next day were not of a kind to make her think him less agreeable.
• Let our first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of travellers.

She could not go wrong.

If this "which" is describing Elizabeth, everything makes sense.

Answer 4

This double negative is grammatically correct. (It is not incorrect). The proscription of double negatives refers to those which, in an attempt to amplify the negative, accomplish the opposite. For example: I don't never put onions on my pancakes is certainly not intended to mean that the writer puts onions on pancakes, although the double negative here gives that meaning. Jane Austen's "double negative" is an attempt to soften the criticism or to be humorous, and she means precisely what she says. Mr. Collins' social failings happened often enough to be "not infrequent" but the narrator is too polite to say that they happen all the time.