I was having a conversation with my coworkers, and we just can't seem to agree on what is the grammatically correct way to say this.
In the context of the conversation, he was trying to express that he skipped his gym session in order to attend a club meeting.
I think the correct way to say this would be "I skipped gym for a reason." instead of "I didn't skip gym for no reason."
For one, his statement actually means he "worked out" for "no reason", but you can hardly tell what it's saying with the double negatives in there.
Everyone else in the office seems to disagree with me though, and I think I'm going crazy. Is that actually proper English?
Best Answer
The use of a double negative, in a way, makes me think that the speaker felt accused of skipping for no reason. Saying, "I didn't skip gym for no reason." emphasizes that more than, "I had a good reason for skipping gym." It seems like understandable idiomatic English to me.