In the the sentence "I cannot accept your offer, but I thank you none the less," it simply means I thank you despite the fact that I don't want what you're offering. I thank you anyway. I thank you even though I don't need to thank you. It's just an idiom. Idioms don't need to analysed in detail to try to make sense of them. They don't make sense. That's what makes them idiomatic.
Yes, However, if you look at Bransheas last post, tsuwm was quoting the perhaps unintentional addition of an extra word (not). kind of like in the beginning of your post.
Equivocal language. When olly uses nonetheless in "adverbs that could make the statement nonetheless emphatic," he should have used "none the less" since that's not what 'nonetheless' means. He meant not less than using 'nonetheless.' But 'nonetheless' as one word does not mean not less than. Its meaning transcends its etymology. It means 'anyway.'
Yeah, that was partly my point. To expose the etymology. You just explained it better.
