Talk:Ain’t

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"Ain’t is also obligatory in some fixed phrases, such as “Say it ain’t so” and “you ain’t seen nothing yet” (though for the former, “Say it isn’t so” is also sometimes used)"

In which case it's not exactly obligatory, is it?88.67.248.27 (talk) 21:55, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

There should be some discussion of the connection between ain't and amn't, which apparently predated ain't as a contraction for "am not" (and is still used in some places). It seems likely that ain't evolved from amn't, since amn't is so hard to pronounce. Terry 20:38, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. I always assumed it had come from "estn't" from the days of Anglo-French, through association with the English verb forms art and are (I hadn't considered to include am, and is would be a redundant inclusion, since est is already is...) Amn't isn't that difficult to pronounce, but it simply doesn't lend itself to contraction, which makes it seem rather strange to learn that ain't is derived therefrom... I had assumed that the usage "amn't" was an invented form to distinguish it from "ain't" (for "isn't"...remember the nyänyä line..."ain't ain't a word 'cuz ain't ain't in the dictionary"...in the cases where it has a meaning in that phrase, it quite clearly is a contraction for "is not"). Why "ain't" should be more from "amn't" than "i'nt" (isn't) or "a'nt" (aren't) is beyond me, especially when those forms are easier to confuse than "amn't". Anyways, I'm happy to report that the form "amn't" is still quite commonly heard (albeit not as commonly as "aren't" in "aren't I?"...well ok, so, in Wisconsin, most people actually say "ain I?")  :-) Tomer TALK 06:29, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)
I had heard, or read, at one time that "ain't" was derived from Creole speakers in Louisiana. It was from a combination of French and English: "J'ai not" -> "Je ain't". Can anyone else verify this? I can't seem to find any references on the Internet to substantiate this, but Tomer's comments above seem similar ("estn't")...
"J'ai not" is not proper French -- the equivalent would be "J'ai pas"
That theory looks highly dubious, considering that ain't originated in Great Britain. Only its exact etymology is debated.

Contents

[edit] Hain't

The AfD for "Hain't" suggested that the content be merged here. This is the content:

Hain't, as used in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, appears to be a contraction of "has not" or "have not" modeled after "ain't" (originally a contraction for "am not", but now a substandard or dialect contraction for several negations.)

Contributed by User:Idon'texist --thanks, Babajobu 20:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Prescriptivists consider the word a shibboleth. Critics say frequent use of ain't is a marker of basilectal — which is to say, "vulgate" or "common people", and by inference, low class — speech. The same applies for using i'n'it (normally written as innit) instead of "isn't it". This judgement, hard to justify on etymological or grammatical reasons, remains a widespread belief, and is to some extent self-perpetuating, since prescriptivist teachers and parents discourage the use of the term.

[edit] she ain't call me

Doesn't sound right to me. Though "she ain't called me" for "she hasn't called me" sounds right. I'll just be bold and change it, though I'm no language expert so feel free to revert. Matt 12:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. In parts of Ireland, people under-pronounce the letter "d", so this can sound like "I i'nt see it" (apostrophe marking mild glottal stop), but I've never heard "I ain't see it" - not in life and not on TV. Gronky 09:32, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Prescriptivists consider the word a shibboleth. Critics say frequent use of ain't is a marker of basilectal — which is to say, "vulgate" or "common people", and by inference, low class — speech. The same applies for using i'n'it (normally written as innit) instead of "isn't it". This judgement, hard to justify on etymological or grammatical reasons, remains a widespread belief, and is to some extent self-perpetuating, since prescriptivist teachers and parents discourage the use of the term.

Do I detect a contributor's personal feelings in these sentences? Consider rewriting it. Rintrah 17:15, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

maybe you should use U.S.A. instead of America

What basis is there for calling these usages "incorrect"? That sounds uncomfortably prescriptivist, from a linguist's point of view. Can't we just say "In some dialects it is also used as a contraction of...", without passing judgment on these dialects by calling them wrong? eliah 23:19, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] British vs. American Usage

Ain't this word used more frequently (and perhaps by upper classes) in British English? I ain't no expert on how wikipedia works, but this article seems to cover almost exclusivley American usage.

I ain't not heard it been used there by those folks. But I ain't live there anytime. So I wouldn't know. I think, if the article ain't right, you gotta look up the riiiight sources, then correct it, if you know what I'm sayin'. Nuthin' too hard in that. Yeehaa!! Rintrah 05:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Howdy, I reckon I disagree with the statement up yonder. Ain't is used very frequently in American rural areas and in African American Vernacular English. Fcfisher 05:08, 18 March 2008

[edit] Written and spoken language

This article is sadly deficient because it focusses on POV prescription-bashing instead of looking at what style manuals etc. actually say. Ain't is very acceptable spoken English, but is rarely found in formal writing, and would not be found, for example, in an academic report. It is a question of register. The "prescriptivists" whom this article seems to enjoy knocking perform a very important task: they help non-linguists, who can't engage in descriptive research for themselves, to judge what language is appropriate in what situations. They base their judgments on descriptive study, combined with a common-sense approach to avoiding ambiguity, and try to make sensible recommendations, though they themselves are as aware as anybody that all such judgments are problematic. See Linguistic prescription. Since ain't belongs to the spoken language of large parts of the English-speaking world, you will find no serious authorities who will condemn it in speech (though the situation in that respect may well have been different in the 19th century, when the form was less wide-spread than it is today), but most authorities advise against using it in writing, and rightly so. This article needs a complete rewrite under that perspective. --Doric Loon 21:45, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. The article sets out to prove a point: that "ain't" is misunderstood, and prescripitivists endorse this misunderstanding. The article takes a denunciating tone against the stated opponents of "ain't"—consider these sentences:

There is little justification for this judgment on etymological or grammatical grounds, but it remains a widespread belief that the word is "not a word" or "incorrect"... Many prescriptivists prefer "Aren't I" in this situation; this is illogical in conjugation (the Hiberno-English and Scottish English form Amn't I?

I suggest this article be rewritten so as to not document a war between descriptivists and prescriptivists. We should not be enlisting readers for a grammatical war, but rather be informing them objectively and impartially. Rintrah 18:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Used incorrectly

From the opening paragraph:

In some dialects it is also used incorrectly as a contraction of “do not”, “does not”, and “did not”, as in I ain’t know that. The word is a perennial issue in English usage.

Does this make sense? Maybe "also used additionally".. --24.118.213.206 19:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

--I removed the "incorrectly"; the sentence stands fine as it is. Ain't is incorrect in Standard American English, but not in other variants. It's more than a little insulting to say that speakers of a language don't know how to use their native tongue. 134.10.20.160 09:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Song lyrics

I removed this list of mostly song lyrics from the article in chief. "Ain't" figures in many, many song lyrics and titles, and cataloguing all of them is probably a vain endeavour. One or two of them, maybe the Hollies and Gershwin, might be worth adding. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 17:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ain’t, uhr, is this a self-contradiction,...?: Origin and early usage

Ain’t arose toward the end of an eighteenth century period that marked the development of most of the English contracted verb forms such as can’t, don’t, and won’t. The form first appears in print in 1685, in a Latin text regarding English variability,.....

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