[a1369209993]

> > I can't imagine it wouldn't be

> I can imagine it would be

No. That means something completely different. They're saying (probably hyperbolically) that they cannot imagine the first of two possible situations, not that they can imagine the second.

[flashback2199]

Oh don't worry, I understand that just fine.

It's the speaker's or writer's task to iterate for a half second to find whatever non double negative sentence fits what they want to say.

English isn't code. You can't say double negatives in conversation or writing, and you have to find the closest thing without using a double negative.

[a1369209993]

> You can't say double negatives

It is in fact not the case that you can't say that. Double negatives, like sentences with a excessive number of conjuctions, are perfectly grammatical (when they don't violate some actual grammatical rule like the one "You do can say that." does); rather, they are in most cases stylistically bad, for much the same reasons that:

  stop = 0
  while(a() && !stop):
    b()
    if(!(c==d || !e())) stop = 1
    // should be `if(c!=d && e()) break`
    if(!stop) e()

is stylistically bad, namely excessive and more importantly needless complexity.

[flashback2199]

Thanks, we agree.

[a1369209993]

Oh. ... Okay, then. In that case I regret to inform you that your previous comment was extremely poorly phrased, to the point of seeming to mean almost the opposite of what you apparently intended. (Particularly in that double negatives are fine in conversation or writing, and can in fact be used, wherever they actually make sense - which is relatively rare in general, but occurs in the case we were originally discussing, since "can imagine it would be" means something different.)

[flashback2199]

Wow, you aren't not really tiring /s

Use double negatives less.

The end.