Style and Double Negatives

Dear A Z:

You wrote:
> a. Eating nothing will cure you.
> b. Eating none of these fruits will cure you.
> c. Eating no fruit will cure you.
> d. The eating of no fruit will cure you.
>
>
> Which of the above correspond to which of the below:
>
> 1. Don’t eat anything/any fruit, and you’ll be cured.
> 2. There is nothing/no fruit that will cure you.
>
The only ones that make sense in English are a and c. A means fasting will cure you. C means that if you eat no fruit you will be cured. D is awkward and no native speaker would ever say it that way. B turns on itself and, again, would never be spoken by a native speaker.

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