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Double negatives of the type I don't know nothing, in which two negatives close together are intended to reinforce each other, are considered illiterate in current standard English, acceptable though they were in earlier usage. These are to be distinguished from the acceptable, if somewhat uncommon, construction That's not a good idea, I don't think, in which the reinforcing negatives appear in different clauses. The more usual type of acceptable double negative is seen in It is not impossible (= it is distinctly possible), in which the negatives are intended to cancel each other out. This is a figure of speech called litotes, a form of understatement.
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