Negative words and phrases

The Minister did not offer an apology at any point. → At no point did the Minister offer an apology. We can make a sentence more emphatic by placing a negative phrase (‘At no point’) at the beginning, after which we may need to reverse the normal word order (‘did the Minister’). There are a number of negative words and phrases that can be very effective in academic writing. They are not commonly used in informal speech but are very appropriate in more formal contexts such as essays. In this paragraph, note the negative words and phrases in bold and the word order that follows them. This was a particularly difficult period for the Government. No matter what they did, everything seemed to go wrong. Neither their handling of the economy at home nor their foreign policies abroad proved effective. No sooner had they weathered one storm than another arrived. At no time were they able to get to grips with events. Some MPs faced a dilemma: they did not want to rebel publicly against the leadership, but neither could they allow things to continue in this way. Not since the leadership battle of 20 years earlier had there been such a key moment in the party’s history. Negative words and phrases using the question pattern When you place the words or phrases below at the beginning of a sentence to emphasise its negative nature, you need to place the auxiliary or modal verb (be, have, could, will, etc.)