The following sentence has been divided into parts. One of them may contain an error. Select the part that contains the error from the given options. If you don’t find any error, mark ‘No error’ as your answer.
We hardly knew nothing / about the manager / who had recently joined.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Explanation
The correct answer is option 1 i.e. We hardly knew nothing.
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The part of the sentence that contains the error is "We hardly knew nothing." The correct phrase should be "We hardly knew anything."
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The error lies in the double negative "hardly" and "nothing," which is grammatically incorrect.
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In English, double negatives are not used for emphasis in standard usage.
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The phrase "hardly" already implies a negative, so "nothing" should be replaced with "anything" to convey the intended meaning.