Joe Boyd reports that the CBC radio program The Current, a guest expert recently said
"If Cuba's been nothing, it's been stable these last ten years."
As Joe observes, this is probably a blend of "Cuba's been nothing if not stable these last ten years", and "If Cuba's been anything, it's been stable these last ten years" (though it might also be a shortened form of "If Cuba's been nothing else, it's been stable these last ten years".) It's also at least technically an overnegation, since you can fix it by changing "nothing" to "anything".
I couldn't find any other similar examples on line. But the blend in the opposite direction seems to be fairly common -- in this case, it would have yielded "Cuba has been anything if not stable these last ten years". Some examples caught in the wilds:
But President Bush has been anything if not a political contrarian on the state of the US economy.
... stalwart jazz pianist Brad Mehldau has been anything if not prolific, with 2005's Day Is Done making it an even dozen albums...
Clinton has been anything if not inconsistent on a whole host of issues - most importantly her wavering 'me too' stance on the war...
For the past month, rather all year, my two Daniels have been anything if not predictable.
OK, everybody, crunch time. Listen up:
Do you not believe that, through the act of immigration, our nation has not been anything if not improved?
Which side is this guy on? I wouldn't like not to think it wasn't mine.
Posted by Mark Liberman at August 3, 2006 02:54 PM