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Me and that Grace sit together on the school bus. Except for not today we didn't. Because today Grampa Miller drove me.
(Junie B.Jones)

In 2010, when I asked the meaning of the highlighted sentence in a Korean forum, a man replied it’s a wrong sentence. And I got a new one yesterday that says it’s a double negative, and meaning “Except for today we did.” Which one is right? If the second one is right, would you parse the original sentence for better understanding?

apaderno
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Listenever
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    "Except for not today we didn't" is not Standard English, but double-negatives are sometimes valid in speech. For more on how double-negatives work in English, you might find this useful: http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/829/how-is-double-negation-interpreted-in-english/835#835 – Matt Apr 08 '13 at 23:32
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    Other than that, this question seems too localized to me. A Google search for "Except for not today we didn’t" has three hits - one is you asking a question about this phrase from the book, and the other two are transcripts of the book. – Matt Apr 08 '13 at 23:33
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    There are two different "non-standard" elements here. Using except for instead of except that** (or just plain but), and the double negative. OP has misunderstood the double negative as a "boolean operation" (mistakenly thinking two negatives cancel each other out). It's just a dialectal/substandard/informal way of expressing negation, sometimes with intent to emphasise. – FumbleFingers Apr 08 '13 at 23:45
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    This is deliberately non-standard English: it is supposed to represent the narration of an obnoxious (but engaging) 6-year-old. – StoneyB on hiatus Apr 08 '13 at 23:59
  • @FumbleFingers, Thank you. I always get more than I could have expected. It's a kind of miraculous eggs that this ELL hen produces. – Listenever Apr 09 '13 at 00:07
  • Its a matter of artistic license, so it doesn't have to be grammatically correct. As for the meaning, its understood in context. I have to agree with Matt that its too localized to likely help others. –  Apr 09 '13 at 00:48
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    "Too localized" is too narrow minded, IMHO. This is ELL; it's for English learners, not for linguists, who already know the answers to most, if not all, of the Qs posted here. When EFL students see this kind of English in print, they wonder why: it does, after all, contradict all the rules, but it's uttered by native Anglophones. Explaining why some folks say such things is important for EFL students. Just like explaining to children that Santa's not real, to the credulous that magic's a trick, & to inexperienced parents that children develop through various cognitive phases (Piaget). –  Apr 09 '13 at 01:03
  • @BillFranke The question is perfectly valid, but "too localized" just means that the closevoters don't think anyone else is going to have this question. I tend to agree. That's something I've been noticing of late, that we're going to need to sort out for ELL; there are a lot of questions which are legitimate questions but are unlikely to help future visitors (hence "too localized" and not necessarily appropriate for SE). Not sure how to handle it, yet, but we're still in beta! – WendiKidd Apr 09 '13 at 02:02
  • @Wendi: This is a problem that needs to be hashed out in Meta. While I agree that few or no other users will likely ask this Q, there will be other Qs asked about the same type of ungrammatical usages by children & illiterate or low-level speakers in literature & newspaper articles. That's my objection to too localized. The usage can be generalized. But this is not the place for this kind of discussion. –  Apr 09 '13 at 02:13
  • @Bill Franke: The double negation business has been answered before. Except for now we've got to consider what to do about this kind of sentence. Which is undeniably non-standard, and probably shouldn't be "taught" to people who might risk confusing such childish/uneducated speech with "valid" usages. – FumbleFingers Apr 09 '13 at 02:34
  • @Fumble: I'm not advocating teaching it, just explaining that children & speakers of nonstandard dialects use it. If EFL students ask about it, they don't know it's nonstandard. Ignoring it is like "Don't ask, don't tell" and "Just say 'No!'" it seems to me. –  Apr 09 '13 at 02:59
  • @Bill Franke: I'm not convinced, so I've closevoted as Too Localised. OP got the relevant info in the first 4 comments. It wouldn't have mattered if there'd never been an actual Answer posted, and I see no reason to keep it open anticipating more. – FumbleFingers Apr 09 '13 at 08:33

1 Answers1

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Junie B. conflates three different Standard English expressions into one completely non-idiomatic one.

  • Except for today, when we didn't.
  • Except today we didn't
  • But not today: we didn't.

Junie B. uses "except for" where Standard English would use "except" elsewhere in the book. And in colloquial English you might very well hear any of the first pieces combined with any of the last pieces, for emphasis or just as a venial mistake. But the author is multiplying the errors as far as she plausibly can, to represent the speech of a 6-year-old who is inordinately, and quite mistakenly, proud of her command of the language.

StoneyB on hiatus
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    @Listenever Thank you for introducing me to this author. If I ever have grandchildren they will enjoy Junie B. tremendously. – StoneyB on hiatus Apr 09 '13 at 00:14
  • Yes, her style is very wonderful. And I read hers twelve. If I have got some knacks for reading, I would like to read hers again. Very bright are they, it’s a cheerful reading. : So my comment in the question in 2010, “Except/ for not today /we didn’t.”, has some point there, hasn’t it? – Listenever Apr 09 '13 at 00:22
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    @Listenever Yes, you got it exactly. Better than Junie B. (don't leave off the B.!) – StoneyB on hiatus Apr 09 '13 at 00:29
  • Yes, I’ll put on B and get A, Thank you for your encouraging. (There are tons and tons of books, yet time is too short. What a pity it is. The next one waiting me is The Great Gatsby. I’m going to finish Jane Eyre today or at least tomorrow. I look forward to your tutorial guidance to the English ocean as ever. – Listenever Apr 09 '13 at 00:39