Nov 2, 2008
They ain’t the same: ain’t serves a purpose in standard and formal English that isn’t doesn’t.
[The use of] ain’t tells you that you’re dealing with a nitty-gritty verity that you don’t need a college education to understand.
Subscribe to 22 Words
Recent Comments
- bryan on Over-the-top action: Flying Jeeps, explosions, and midair amputation
- Jim on Over-the-top action: Flying Jeeps, explosions, and midair amputation
- Brady Lee on Over-the-top action: Flying Jeeps, explosions, and midair amputation
- Carlos on Over-the-top action: Flying Jeeps, explosions, and midair amputation
- Melissa Parnell on Crazy backing-up witness autotuned
Sponsors
Categories
- Arts in General (24)
- Bible (67)
- Blogging (159)
- Brevity (25)
- Constructive Criticism (271)
- Faith (217)
- Food & Drink (63)
- Language (227)
- Literature (112)
- Love (93)
- Miscellanea (311)
- Movies & TV (29)
- Music (172)
- parenting (158)
- Personal (191)
- Questions (258)
- Quotes (41)
- Recommendations (132)
- Sports (14)
- Technology (2)
- Uncategorized (10)
- Visual Art (36)
- Writing (57)
Archives
- September 2010 (18)
- August 2010 (88)
- July 2010 (116)
- June 2010 (79)
- May 2010 (89)
- April 2010 (62)
- March 2010 (21)
- February 2010 (25)
- January 2010 (32)
- December 2009 (47)
- November 2009 (63)
- October 2009 (45)
- September 2009 (40)
- August 2009 (40)
- July 2009 (40)
- June 2009 (37)
- May 2009 (47)
- April 2009 (51)
- March 2009 (40)
- February 2009 (31)
- January 2009 (44)
- December 2008 (47)
- November 2008 (54)
- October 2008 (50)
- September 2008 (41)
- August 2008 (45)
- July 2008 (51)
- June 2008 (51)
- May 2008 (66)
- April 2008 (74)
- March 2008 (71)
- February 2008 (19)
Reader Recommendations
Some of the books and music that you, the readers, have recommended here over time:
Twitter Recommendations
Theme based on Derek Punsalan's Grid Focus.
Only when used by people who don’t otherwise use it.
For some, it’s used as just a general replacement of “isn’t”. Then it’s not serving the purpose of punctuation, but is just a part of their dialect.
Similar to profanity, actually…
…which is why you said “in standard and formal English”.
So um. Yeah.
I don’t actually have anything to add. :)
Yes! Justification to use “ain’t”!!! And that is exactly what I use it for – when someone ain’t gettin’ what ought to be hitting them in the face!
That’s kind of like a lot of words in Ebonics, actually. Have you studied that at all?
I ain’t getting it…
I like that a lot.
“Similar to profanity, actually…”
well, there’s an entire conversation right there. but . . . yeah. :]
and this is just a personal thing, but for some reason i notice that i’ll imitate an urban dialect for more or less the effect you describe here, but never a rural one. hm.
I am sure that you already knew this, but “ain’t” was formal at a point in time and was banned from UK. Check it out!
I probably use “ain’t” a lot more than I realize. And for some reason, unbeknown to me, I say “hain’t.” I can’t even think of a context to illustrate, but I think it is usually in place of hasn’t it.
I’ve been working on not saying it, but sometimes it just flows out.
this reminds me of the time i told boris johnson that “ain’t” wasn’t a word. his response:
“You AIN’T gonna tell me AIN’T AIN’T a word ’cause you AIN’T my momma.”
he was right.