What is the negation of this statement?

[Qwertyuiop[]]

Hi, I had this question in a test. What is the negation of the statement : " It's not right to deny that switch is not off "
I think I selected the option "It's right to deny that switch is off". Not 100% sure if that's what I selected. I just basically removed the "nots" from the statement lmao.

 

[tri]

Hi, I had this question in a test. What is the negation of the statement : " It's not right to deny that switch is not off "
I think I selected the option "It's right to deny that switch is off". Not 100% sure if that's what I selected. I just basically removed the "nots" from the statement lmao.

In both the statements, the switch is turned on.
Negation is refusal or denial of something.
So the negation of the first statement should be either
"It's right to deny that switch is not off ",
or
"It's not right to deny that switch is off "

 

[Dr.Peterson]

Hi, I had this question in a test. What is the negation of the statement : " It's not right to deny that switch is not off "
I think I selected the option "It's right to deny that switch is off". Not 100% sure if that's what I selected. I just basically removed the "nots" from the statement lmao.

You can't reach down into the middle of a statement and remove a "not". You have to be far more careful than that. In fact, to remove two "nots" sometimes leaves the meaning unchanged, rather than negating it.

What I typically do to negate a statement like this is to write the negation in its most straightforward form (by just prefixing "It is not true that"), and then reword the statement bit by bit to have a suitable form:

It is not true that it is not right to deny that switch is not off.​

​

It is true that it is right to deny that switch is not off.​

​

It is right to deny that switch is not off.​

But the statement is written very awkwardly, I suppose intentionally so; one would never actually say such a thing, and would likely not mean it quite literally. So I really don't like the question at all. (I'm assuming that you have copied it exactly, which I question.)

And it could be rewritten in many ways, so it's quite possible that my end result is not one of the choices. Depending on what the choices look like, I might next work from the inside out, changing "to deny that switch is not off" to "to say that it is not true that the switch is not off", and then to "to say that the switch is off", and so on.

 

[Qwertyuiop[]]

You can't reach down into the middle of a statement and remove a "not". You have to be far more careful than that. In fact, to remove two "nots" sometimes leaves the meaning unchanged, rather than negating it.

What I typically do to negate a statement like this is to write the negation in its most straightforward form (by just prefixing "It is not true that"), and then reword the statement bit by bit to have a suitable form:

It is not true that it is not right to deny that switch is not off.​

​

It is true that it is right to deny that switch is not off.​

​

It is right to deny that switch is not off.​

But the statement is written very awkwardly, I suppose intentionally so; one would never actually say such a thing, and would likely not mean it quite literally. So I really don't like the question at all. (I'm assuming that you have copied it exactly, which I question.)

And it could be rewritten in many ways, so it's quite possible that my end result is not one of the choices. Depending on what the choices look like, I might next work from the inside out, changing "to deny that switch is not off" to "to say that it is not true that the switch is not off", and then to "to say that the switch is off", and so on.

I think that option was there and that was probably the one I selected. This question was in the logic part of a uni entrance test. Not just their logic section but even the maths section question are just phrased in such a way you can barely understand the question , never mind solve it.

 

[Steven G]

You can always, as Dr Peterson stated, say that It is not true that It's not right to deny that switch is not off

In this way you never get the answer wrong. You may not understand what you are writing but again, you'll never be wrong.