Pope Benedict would make his visit to Auschwitz Birkenau as a "son of the German people", Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.
He revealed that the trip was not originally in Benedict's schedule, but that the 79-year-old pontiff had personally insisted on it.
"In the first draft of the itinerary, there was no Auschwitz visit. The pope said 'I want to go to Auschwitz. I cannot not go to Auschwitz'," said the spokesman.
Pope Benedict, a former member of the Hitler Youth, will pray at the execution wall where thousands of Auschwitz prisoners were summarily shot by the Nazis.
He will also visit the cell where Catholic priest Maximilian Kolbe died in 1941, after offering to take the place of a prisoner whom the Nazis had sentenced to death by starvation.
Is it correct to say ' I cannot not go to Auschwitz'? To say 'I cannot go to Auschwitz' is grammatically correct.
It sounds odd to say 'I cannot not go to'.
I would like to hear your comments. [It seems the board refuses to print so-called inflammotory words; you see some stars. It is the famous four letter word for Hitler's party.]
Top answer
This is correct usage. It's similar to you cannot avoid going to Just do a search on Yahoo for "cannot not" (quotations are important) and you will find other samples: We Cannot Not Know History. PHILIP JOHNSON'S POLITICS AND CYNICAL SURVIVAL ...
— Marius Hancu
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So the above is fine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can you change the tyres of the car?
When you 'cannot not' do something it means that there is an element of compulsion there (even one created by yourself). It is absolutely unthinkable that you do not do whatever...it is only used when the 'whatever' is something very important.
Changing a tyre is not an important enough task for you to say you 'cannot not'. You would simply say 'I have to...'