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Where should be the right location of the word "never" in the following sentence?

1) "We never did not have a lecture by this lecturer"

2) "Never we did not have a lecture by this lecturer"

3) We did not have never a lecture by this lecturer"?

4) We did not have a lecture by this lecturer, never"

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  • Double negatives annoy many people. – Nihilist_Frost May 30 '16 at 20:00
  • It's not clear: did have at least one lecture from this lecturer? – StoneyB on hiatus May 30 '16 at 20:12
  • @StoneyB No, never. – Judicious Allure May 30 '16 at 20:15
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    Why do you want to use double negation? We never had a lecture by that person. is a simple and clear variant. – V.V. May 30 '16 at 20:38
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    1 is a very awkward way of saying that you never missed a lecture from this lecturer, or that there were no occasions when this lecturer didn't give a lecture. 2 & 3 are wrong grammatically. 4 means you did not have any lectures from this lecturer, but the "never" on the end is confusing, awkward, arguably wrong, and should be removed. You said in a comment that you did not have any lectures from this lecturer - if you want to state that emphatically then "We did not ever have a lecture from this lecturer" is a better way to put it. – nnnnnn May 30 '16 at 20:58
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1) "We never did not have a lecture by this lecturer"

This means that the lecturer would always end up giving you lectures at some rigid and constant frequency throughout your experience. Double negative = affirmative in English.

2) "Never we did not have a lecture by this lecturer"

3) We did not have never a lecture by this lecturer"?

4) We did not have a lecture by this lecturer, never"

All of these are ungrammatical.

2) "Never we did not have a lecture by this lecturer"

There is the antiquated "Never did (subject) (verb)", however. I don't advise using it casually.

3) We did not have never a lecture by this lecturer"?

"Never" never goes after its target verb, unless in some nonstandard speech. It goes before it. e.g. "He was never permitted to enter this facility!"

4) We did not have a lecture by this lecturer, never

Nonstandard.

I'm more familiar with

We did not have a lecture by this lecturer, ever.

though I do not recommend this in formal writing, ever.

Even better would be

We did not ever have a lecture by this lecturer.

EDIT: As it seems that your lecturer did not give you any lectures, just never alone can negate. It does not have to use do-support.

My preferred sentence would be:

We never had a lecture from this lecturer.

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  • I have heard people say #4. It might not strictly be correct, but you will often hear people say it as an intensifier, to emphasize the "never-ness", like "I have not smoked marijuana - never, not once." – stangdon May 31 '16 at 14:53

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