student asking question

What does "have never not eaten off" mean? I don't understand why "not" is being used after "never".

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

"Have never not eaten off" is another way of saying, "I have always eaten off my date's plate." As you probably can tell, "never" and "not" next to each other is considered a double negative. They actually cancel each other out and create a positive sentence. Grammatically, "have never not eaten off" is incorrect. However, many native speakers will still say this.

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