| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
|
1. Grammar: Traditional Rules, Word Order, Agreement, and Case
|
| § 41. not |
| You should be careful where you put not and other negatives in a sentence in order to avoid ambiguity. The sentence All classes are not open to enrollment could be taken to mean either “All classes are closed to enrollment” or “Not all classes are open to enrollment.” Similarly, the sentence Kim didn’t sleep until noon could mean either “Kim went to sleep at noon” or “Kim got up before noon.” | 1 |
| More at
adverbs,
also, and
only. | 2 |
|
|
|
| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
