What’s wrong with this sentence?
“She hadn’t no confidence in herself.”
When a sentence contains two negative words, the sentence has a double negative. Double negatives are often employed because of the misguided idea that two negatives cancel each other to make a positive. Certain double negatives are always considered incorrect and are to be avoided.
The quoted sentence has an unacceptable double negative. Both hadn’t and no are negative words. There are two ways to correct the unacceptable double negative. One way is to change no to any.
She hadn’t any confidence in herself.
The second way is to change hadn’t to had.
She had no confidence in herself.
