Which of these sentences is grammatically correct and why?
His instructions were to not run
His instructions were not to run.
Without the word 'run' the word 'to' would immediately follow 'to', like: "His instructions were to run." If we had to construct a negative out of this, should we say "were not to" or "were to not run".
What I think is that we should use the former ("were to not run") because "His instructions were to not run" makes it sound like someone instructed, specifically, to not run. The latter ("were not to run") is more like saying that someone did not instruct to run (but he did not instruct to not run, either).
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