Not again? - spoken with a stress on the last syllable - is an idiomatic British colloquialism. For example: Father: "Why is your knee bleeding?" Child: "I fell off my bike." Father, caustically: "Not again? How often must I tell you to go slower round corners?" Mother: "Quick, antiseptic, plasters." Child, gloomily: "Not again?"
For a tiny word, not is powerful indeed. It flatly reverses any adjective or adverb put after it, any clause or sentence that includes it. Yet not many textbooks of grammar pay it much attention. It came into English probably from northern Europe - today's German uses nicht - rather than from the Latin non. But you can also find our Latin-derived ne in Chaucer; indeed, as an archaism, in much later poets.
Not affects even our spelling and pronunciation. We shorten it to -n't, and then create such words as didn't, haven't, isn't, mayn't, mustn't, needn't, oughtn't and wouldn't; or can't (which even in full we curiously spell as one word, cannot, not two) don't, shan't and won't, as oddly pronounced as they are spelt. These words are still rare in formal prose, but common in informal language, even in print - conversation in a novel, say - and still more so when spoken (at times to the confusion of south-Britons: the American can't, spoken with a short - a-, sounds to us very like can).
Not and -n't also have one odd use. To invite a positive answer to some question, we put it in the negative: for example, Don't you think so? No less oddly, in questions -n't doesn't simply replace not, it also shifts position. We say he is not awake or he isn't awake, as we choose. But as a question is he not awake? becomes isn't he awake?
Double negative
The placing of not more generally is odd. It follows the verb it applies to. So, using one of the 'auxiliary' verbs cited above, you can shove it into any compound tense of any other verb - I will not go or I did not go, for example - but not with the single-word present or imperative. Even in Victorian days, it took a brave poet to write Say not the struggle naught availeth, and only someone aping biblical English would try that today. There's one rare exception: with the subjunctive mood, as in he urged that the troops not advance or that his name not be publicized.
One may misplace not: as in Shakespeare's All that glisters is not gold. In fact, gold shines; he meant not all that glisters is gold. But that error - for such it is - is rare. Not so the technical error of misplacing not only, as in we not only drove to Delhi but Agra too. To purists, this implies that rather than reaching Delhi by car we might have gone by plane, train or on foot. But any listener knows that our not only doesn't actually apply to drove, but to Delhi. By now, is this really an error? Who but a pedant today would say I eat not only fish but meat?
Some other errors with not are more truly such. The commonest - in everyday speech - is when the arrested thief tells the policeman "I didn't do nothing". Grammarians call that error a 'double negative'. (And note what they do not call a double negative. I've read a would-be expert describing neither... nor as such a phrase. He should go back to school.) One can invent circumstances in which I didn't do nothing would be fine. "You saw the shed catch fire. Why did you just stand around doing nothing?" "I didn't do nothing, I called the fire brigade." But this is pretty artificial.
And so back to not again, this time with no question-mark. Alas, you will not again find my thoughts on English in The Telegraph. I've decided, with regret, that I've written enough. But I can't not hope that you've enjoyed it, as I have. Nor not thank you.
