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sentence:

I'm living in los angeles now. I'm clean. legit

No you ain't never been clean. dude

is this part → "ain't never" is this a case of double negative?

i was in doubt because i see in cambridge that you can't use double negatives i'll post a link to where i see this

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pt/gramatica/gramatica-britanica/double-negatives-and-usage

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    Well, ain't and never are both negative, so what do you want to call them together? You seem to be expecting them to wipe each other out like antimatter and matter, but it doesn't work that way. Quite often people use extra negatives -- like the n- in never -- to emphasize the strength of the negation, like saying It's a long, long, long way. This is called "Negative Concord" and it's normal in (for example) Spanish and French; in English it's common but stigmatized in many uses.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jan 28, 2023 at 16:18
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    i see, i was in doubt because i see in cambridge that you can't use double negatives i'll edit the question and post a link to clarify
    – gamer123
    Commented Jan 28, 2023 at 16:26
  • Please edit your post to use correct capitalization.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Jan 28, 2023 at 16:39

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Yes, this is what is traditionally called a "double negative".

It is a normal construction in many languages, including Old and Middle English, and many varieties of English today, but it fell out of favour in prestige English a couple of centuries ago, and is not part of standard Englishes.

Somewhere along the way, somebody invented a special name for it, along with the nonsensical rationalisation that the negatives "cancelled out"*, presumably to facilitate teaching generation after generation of schoolchildren that the way they spoke their native language was WRONG!

*There are contexts in which the negatives can cancel out but they are rare, and strongly marked by emphasis. eg "I've done nothing all day!" "Really, absolutely nothing?" "Well no, I haven't done nothing, but I've done very little of importance". But in contexts like the original question, all English speakers will understand what was meant (even those who claim that it means the opposite), and therefore that is what it means.

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    Actually this is another case of Latin worship, like "split infinitive", The Roman grammarians said Simplex negatio negat. Duplex negatio affirmat (to which Larry Horn added Triplex negatio confundit) And those Latin-worshipping English pedants took it right over for a universal principle, which, being false, caught on immediately and started being part of Proper Grammar, for those who Cared.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jan 28, 2023 at 17:00
  • I didn't know that, @JohnLawler. Was that another case of rationalization defying reality, or did Latin really not have intensifying negatives?
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Jan 28, 2023 at 17:18
  • It probly did, but they might not have been considered negatives. The Romans assumed all languages were like theirs. Luckily Greek was enough like Latin to give them a universal feeling; but linguists who didn't distinguish adjectives from nouns, for instance, may not have the best take on real languages.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jan 28, 2023 at 18:01