In an attempt to bring about a deeper understanding of the semantic and pragmatic properties of utterances involving metalinguistic negation, this paper arguments that formal emphasis on alleged essential properties has diverted attention from the 'real' essential property which is that some of the material falling within the scope of negation is echoically used in the sense of Sperber and Wilson. There seems to be no need furthermore, to postulate any kind of ambiguity in the negation operator itself.