“I don’t know nothing.”

It’s a common cliché’ we hear today that we use and hear today. But is it really correct grammar?

No, it isn’t. Avoid the double negative in your sentence. It should be, “I know nothing,” or “I don’t know anything.”

We need to hit our pause button once in a while. We need to work to speak grammatically correct the best we can. Dialects and colloquialism always help muddy our conversations.

And when I remind myself of that, it always leads me down Memory Lane.

Looking back at my days of Catholic elementary and high school, I’ll never forget some of the wisdom passed along to me from nuns. There also were those slaps and smacks that tended to linger.

However, I will never forget Sister Benedetta, who unlocked my writing career during my sophomore year in high school, and she always reminded me of this — always think before you speak and listen before you speak.

Never doubt a nun.

How many times have you heard that, and how many times have you actually followed the advice? Being an ex-teacher, I always passed it along to my students, and worked to choose my words carefully.

As a society, we tend not to speak correctly, as we are engulfed and wrapped in clichés and slang. Watch and listen to a British TV show and notice the difference from us to them. The Brits strive to speak grammatically correct.

Growing up in the sportswriting business, I’ll never forget legendary late Philadelphia Big Five public address announcer John McAdams explaining to me how to read a certain score.

For example, if a team was trailing 4-0, McAdams would read the score, “four to zero.”

Huh?

It should be “four to nothing,” right? Everyone would read it that way.

However, McAdams was right. The word “nothing” is usually always misused in sports and in many life situations.

When a coach often says that “his team left nothing on the field,” he is correct and it is an idiom. But when an athlete or anyone else says, “I don’t know anything about it,” he or she is incorrect.

There are countless other examples where double negatives are applied, the word “nothing” is misused, and how we speak incorrectly in general, but I think you get the point.

The phrase “Nothing says Pennsylvania like chocolate-covered, Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets (they certainly sound good; that can be another grammatical issue as cupcakes don’t make sounds),” may not sound correct, but it is.

Billy Preston’s ’70s song lyric,” Nothing from nothing leaves nothing. You have to have something if you want to be with me,” is correct.

“Hogan’s Heroes” iconic Sergeant Schultz was correct with his classic lines, “I know nothing, I see nothing, and I hear nothing.”

I don’t want to turn this into a grammar lesson, but always think about your grammar. Think about your double negatives.

You may have had your own Sister Benedetta in your life that reminded you, and think about them before your next response to someone.

JEFF MOELLER | TNEDITOR@TNONLINE.COM