 In ordinary language, semantic double negation (as opposed to negative concord as in I ain’t never done nothing to nobody, an agreement phenomenon in which only one semantic negation is expressed, addressed in the next section) tends not to cancel out completely. This is predictably the case when a semantic contrary is negated: not uncommon is weaker than common; one can be not unhappy without being happy. But even when an apparently contradictory negation is negated (from the unexceptionable it’s not impossible to the more unusual double-not of Homer Simpson’s concessive I’m not not licking toads [http://tinyurl.com/34jwhjz]), the duplex negatio of \(A\) doesn’t affirm \(A\), or at least it provides a rhetorically welcome concealment, as suggested by Frege’s metaphor of “wrapping up a thought” in double negation. The negation in such cases (impossible, not-licking) is coerced into a virtual contrary whose negation, \(\neg\copy A\), is weaker than (is unilaterally entailed by) \(A\) (see Horn 2017 and the entry on  contradiction):