"I was trying to submerge myself in everything - the culture, the food, the coffee shops, everything - and the people were really helpful to me. They really were supportive of the movie. I didn't really meet hardly anyone who wasn't supportive of the film." - Forest Whitaker, on the people of Uganda's reaction to the production of The Last King of Scotland
Forest has used a double negative in the last sentence of his statement. While this type of construction is common in colloquial speech, it often appears in questions on standardized examinations with the expectation that it will be recognized as an error.
The phrase "didn't really meet hardly anyone" contains a negative (the contracted form of "not") that negates the verb "did meet." The adverb "really" expresses the degree of significance of the action.
The adverb "hardly" means "barely; not to a significant degree." In modifying "meet," "hardly" negates the verb and expresses the degree of significance of the action.
Both the "really/not" construction and the adverb "hardly" are negatives that intensify the degree of significance of the action. The presence of both in the same sentence creates a double negative.
These two versions of Forest's statement avoid the double negative:
"I didn't really meet anyone who wasn't supportive of the film."
"I hardly met anyone who wasn't supportive of the film."
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