another pet peeve I have is double or even triple negatives used casually. Newspapers like the NYTimes or Wall street journal are very guilty of this. For examp

another pet peeve I have is double or even triple negatives used casually. Newspapers like the NYTimes or Wall street journal are very guilty of this. For example: "The congressman voted down a bill banning opposition to Foo". Of course, this statement is factual, but it's extremely difficult to tell whether the congressman is in favor of Foo or not. Simply contracting the sentence to "The congressman (doesn't?) like Foo" loses info. I think the proper solution here is for the newspaper to have the original confusing sentence, but also add a second sentence with the contraction as a hint. For example: "The congressman voted down a bill banning opposition to Foo. He did this because he is in favor of Foo."