<p>James easily passed the biology exam without hardly studying his lab notes</p>
<p>I know that "without hardly" is a double negative because they both indicate scarcity.</p>
<p>But, what about this example:</p>
<p>When the village elders present recommendations, there is "hardly ever" any opposition against their proposal.</p>
<p>I don't think it is a double negative, but my teacher says otherwise. In addition, is "opposition against" wrong? Should it be "opposition to"? why? logically speaking, you can be "against someone; hence, your opposing them. </p>
<p>:/ </p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>“hardly ever” is not a double negative. Consider a simple sentence: I hardly ever swim. If that were a double negative, it would mean “I always swim,” which of course it doesn’t.</p>
<p>“opposition against” sounds idiomatically wrong to my American ears, but not necessarily grammatically wrong. There might be dialects where it does sound idiomatically correct. A similar example is the use of “different.” Depending on your dialect and the occasion, it might be followed by “from,” “than,” or “to,” but most Americans would never say “to.”</p>
<p>WasatchWriter is correct. “to” is the correct preposition w/opposition. It’s just the idiom.</p>
<p>Right I understand. What other examples of looks-like-double-negatives can you give me?</p>
<p>Not all language questions have a right or wrong answer.</p>
<p>“opposition against” is unusual, but plenty of people use it. Put the phrase in quotes and Google it. You get about .25 Million hits. But “opposition to” gets about 11 Million hits.</p>
<p>I suspect that most American book and magazine editors would insist that a writer change “against” to “to” in most circumstances.</p>