What on earth does this sentence mean? "I don't doubt that the two hosts share a personal relationship that's anything less than cordial." Double negatives are bad enough, but quadruple negatives only indicate that the writer doesn't have a clue what he's trying to say . . .

Thank you! I'm no English major (by a long shot), but I found that sentence disturbing. I thought it was a triple negative (net negative), though the article suggested he meant net positive (that they were greater than or equal to cordial).

Yeah, it looks like the writer meant either "I don't believe that the two hosts share a personal relationship that's anything less than cordial," or "I don't doubt that the two hosts share a personal relationship that's cordial." But it took me a while to figure that out, because what he said means the opposite.

Translation: The author believes that Conan and Jay's relationship is probably very cordial.

This entire article was much more awkard that the Conan-Jay interview. Patterson should pat himself on the back.

dajhilton wrote:

What on earth does this sentence mean? "I don't doubt that the two hosts share a personal relationship that's anything less than cordial."

I read it as a triple negative, meant to be funny, implying that the two don't get along. "Don't doubt" = believe, "anything less than cordial" = non-cordial

Translation: I believe that the two hosts share a personal relationship that is non-cordial.

That's how I read it anyway. Given the writer was commenting on the professional rivalry between them -- one will be taking the other's gig -- this makes sense. You can argue that it is an awkward, but it can be argued that it was artistic/literary license, meant to be funny. I agree, however, that it required a re-reading to make sense of.

I only see one negative - don't. Less and doubt aren't negatives in the grammatical sense. ("I don't want less" isn't a double negative, nor is "I don't want you to doubt me.")

Anyways - I assume the writer is using hesitation language - doubt and the negative clause to show that he is making an assumption that they have a cordial personal relationship, but at the same time, not endorsing that they do.

There is a different meaning in the sentence - "I assume that they have a cordial relationship." verses "I don't doubt that they have a cordial relationship." It's a slight difference, and if it is confusing people, it probably needed to be parsed better, but I think I know what the writer was intending to convey.