Negation and bad English

There are lots of different ways in which we can negate a clause.  Let's take this clause as an example:

I have read your text message

Here are some of the ways you can negate this clause in contemporary varieties of English:

1. Replace your with no: I have read no text message
2. Add not after the auxiliary verb have: I have not read your text message
3. Add n't after the auxiliary verb have: I haven't read your text message
4. Add nae after the auxiliary verb: I have nae read your text message
5. Contract the subject and auxiliary to I've and add no before the main verb: I've no read your text message
6. Delete the auxiliary and add the adverb never before the main verb: I never read your text message
7. Replace have with ain't: I ain't read your text message
8. Replace have with ain't and add never: I ain't never read your text message
9. Replace your with no, have with ain't and add never: I ain't never read no text message

Some questions

1. Which of these negation patterns do you think you use? 
2. Do you use all of them in writing?  What about in speech? 
3. Would you avoid using some of these if you were talking to someone you didn't know well? 
4. Can you think of more ways of negating the clause?
5. Can you think of two different meanings for example 6?

Correct and incorrect language

Negation patterns have been used in the past to illustrate what some consider to be 'bad' English.  For example, they suggest that using two negative markers in a clause is the equivalent of using no negative marking at all.  The argument is that a combination of two negatives makes a positive:

(1) I have not eaten no sweets = 'I have eaten some sweets'

There are a number of problems with this argument:

1. A combination of three negatives makes a negative, so:

   (2) I haven't never eaten no sweets = 'I haven't eaten any sweets'
   which is logically perfectly fine, but clearly wouldn't be considered acceptable by people who object to examples like 'You ain't nothing but a hounddog'

2. Speakers who use a high proportion of negative markers in one clause are using a process known as cumulative negation, whereby the more negative markers there are, the more emphatically negative the utterance is.  This has nothing to do with counting the number of negative markers and establishing whether there is an odd or an even number.  So if someone says 'I ain't never seen no kid', the high proportion of negatives is used to deny emphatically the assertion that the speaker had seen a child.
3. Cumulative negation has a long history, used in the past by great writers, whose language has often been held up as a model of good use, or impressive style.  So for example, the great English poet Geoffrey Chaucer used cumulative negation:

A better preest I trowe that nowher noon is
'I believe that no-one nowhere is a better priest'
(General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, line 524)

• Here Chaucer is emphasising that no-one was a better priest than the Parson; it is this pattern that has continued to be used in the non-standard varieties of English, but has been lost in the standard variety.  This is a good example of how non-standard English can sometimes be functionally superior to the standard variety.  Many people who think cumulative negation is 'bad English' are surprised to discover that it was used by great writers like Chaucer.

Some questions

1. Why do you think people believe in 'correct' English?
2. Do you think there is such a thing as 'correct Scots'?  Why (not)?
3. What features do you think illustrate bad English?  Who uses them, and on what occasions do they use them?  [For example, do they use these forms in both speech and writing?  Do they use them in very formal kinds of discourse, or only when they are speaking or writing informally?]