"to not get" vs "not to get"

I came across this sentence in an article, "As she speaks of her family, friends and life, it's difficult to not get that 'feel good' mood."

I'm wondering if the following sentence could also mean the same: "As she speaks of her family, friends and life its difficult not to get that 'feel good' mood."

So my question is, does "not to get" and "to not get" mean the same?

Solution 1:

The answer to your question is that "it's difficult not to get that 'feel good' mood" and "it's difficult to not get that 'feel good' mood" have the same meaning.

As to which variant is more common, @EdwinAshworth's nGram link shows "difficult not to" is much the more likely variant. This applies also to nGrams comparing "easy not to / easy to not", "hard not to / hard to not", and the bare "not to / to not". This may have something to do with strictures about avoiding the split infinitive, but it is probably more likely to be a choice made for prosodic reasons, as Edwin states.

Note, however, that in certain circumstances, "to not" and "not to" do not have the same meaning.

My goal is not to become famous.

My goal is to not become famous.

In the first, becoming famous is not a goal. In the second not becoming famous is the goal.

Solution 2:

To begin, I want to express, in summary, that I feel the two sentences have the same meanings because "difficult" has two senses. Differences in "to not" and "not to" can be very subjective. Ordinarily, it takes a lot of imagination.

I spent a lot of time mulling over this question, until someone walked me through a guide on figuring out parts of speech:

1. Start with the verb (to become famous; to have a goal).
2. Move to the adverbs (not). That's far enough.

And that's where I came to understand the difference between "to not" and "not to".

The setup

• I suggest we start with an easier sentence pair: "I told him to not go."; "We told her not to go." This will be very easy to express.
• It's easy to think of "to" as synonymous with "until" or "until ~ happens".

to not

If you cycle the synonym into "I told him to not go," you get "I told him until he didn't go." In this sense, it's more invasive. The subject continues its action until the indirect object ceases its action. It's a very condescending and controlling action.

not to

If you cycle the synonym into "We told her not to go," you get "We told her not until she went." The difference is austere! In this case, the indirect object always has the liberty to complete its intended action, but the subject continually "disapproves" until that happens (perhaps with the hope that things will change).

Grammar

Getting back to the "part of speech", we can see that "not" is an adverb. In "to not", the adverb is post-prescriptive. In "not to", the adverb is pre-perscriptive. But "not" is very abstract. It's easier to use an adverb that can be easily visualized, "jovially":

1. I told him to jovially go.
2. We told her jovially to go.

It is clear that jovially in case 1. modifies "go" and modifies "told" in case 2.

Back to the sentences in question

We have:

1. "It's difficult not to get that feel-good mood." -and-
2. "It's difficult to not get that feel-good mood."

In 1., "difficult" is actually transitive and amended with a zero-object and should be "hard [for me]", means 'hard':

In 2., "difficult" means "negative"; therefore, the sentences have a shared meaning.

1. "It's difficult for me not to get that feel-good mood."
2. "It's not to not get that feel-good mood."