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Anonymous Posted 10 years ago
Vocabulary
Nothing if not
"This is, after all, a civil service that has had to deal with a coalition government for the last five years and that had a cabinet that was nothing if not divided." (BBC website.)
What does the noun phrase "a cabinet that was nothing if not divided" exactly mean? (These two negatives in the relative clause make me a bit confused how to interpret it.)
What does the noun phrase "a cabinet that was nothing if not divided" exactly mean? (These two negatives in the relative clause make me a bit confused how to interpret it.)
Top answer
That is a common idiom, and it's easy to see how it could be confused. It means that the cabinet was extremely divided. It's difficult to explain, but you can think about it this way: If the cabinet was not divided, it was nothing at all.
- That is a common idiom, and it's easy to see how it could be confused.
- It means that the cabinet was extremely divided.
- It's difficult to explain, but you can think about it this way: If the cabinet was not divided, it was nothing at all.
- But it was never "nothing", so it must have been divided.
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1 Answers
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That is a common idiom, and it's easy to see how it could be confused.
It means that the cabinet was extremely divided.
It's difficult to explain, but you can think about it this way:
If the cabinet was not divided, it was nothing at all. But it was never "nothing", so it must have been divided.
It means that the cabinet was extremely divided.
It's difficult to explain, but you can think about it this way:
If the cabinet was not divided, it was nothing at all. But it was never "nothing", so it must have been divided.
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