Informal Language – ‘Ain’t Nobody’ or ‘Ain’t Anybody’?

informal-languagemultiple-negationnegative-concordspoken-english

I just watched a TV show and the guy says:

I ain't trying to fight with nobody with a baby.

So here, I can't understand the "nobody" since it make no sense to me, but it sounds like anybody, and if it's "I ain't trying to fight with anybody with a baby." that makes sense to me.

Best Answer

Informal English sometimes uses what's called a "double negative" for emphasis, putting words like "ain't" and "nobody" together to reinforce how strong the negative is. ("Negative concord" is a more precise, but much less common, term for this.) Here, the quoted character is strongly protesting how little he desires to fight someone with a baby — this would be much less emphatic if he'd just said "I ain't trying to fight with anybody with a baby."