Not ‘Not Unfair’
12 November 2009 / Michael
The opposite of ‘unfair’ is ‘fair’. Not ‘not unfair’.
So write “The Respondent has not shown a fair reason for the dismissal”, rather than “The Respondent has not shown a not unfair reason for dismissal”.
Double negatives aren’t necessarily sinful, but they should not be used without care.
3
George Orwell suggested that one can cure oneself of the not un- formation by memorizing this sentence: A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.
Orwell might have made an excellent tribunal advocate. That suggestion is, itself, an elegantly pointed bit of advocacy.
I hate “really quite”. Really small means more than just small, as does quite small, but “really quite small” has no more meaning than “small”.