That and "I'm not" works just as wel as "I an't/ain't."

ain't has become quite versatile. Contrary to leaving the language it has become actually even more ubiquitous:

Consider
"I ain't a lawyer but.." (replaces: am not)
"I ain't got any money" ("ain't got" replaces: do not have)
"He ain't give a fuck" (replaces: doesn't)
"We ain't been here long" (replaces: have not)

and so on.

However I thought it was okay to say "I *am* a doctor, are I not?"

But now that you mention it "I are" is not correct, so why should the above be? Weird.

Thucy, you're correct that "ain't" has not left the language entirely, it is still used regionally. It has, however, disappeared from what is considered "proper" speech. The first use you mention (I ain't a lawyer) is grammatically correct (etymologically speaking). The other uses are what led to "ain't" be abolished from classrooms. The point of ain't existing is that it filled a niche in the English being verb conjugation. However, just as "I are not a doctor" is incorrect, so too is "I am not got any money" or "He am not give a fuck" or "We am not been here long."

I will grant you that the word has become "versatile," as you describe, but that does not mean it is correct, grammatically nor etymologically.

I suppose my real surprise was, that ain't used to fulfill a function in the English language that everyone spoke, and according to one colleague, the high-class of England still say "an't" (but we'll have to let some of our UK users comment on the veracity of that :).

My point is that since everyone knows what it means and a huge number of English speakers use it all the time, it is an integral part of the English language.

Not Oxford English, no, but real English, yes.

However I'm not really feeling another drawn out debate on descriptivism versus prescriptivism.

Suffice to say I'm favor descriptivist grammar and find that prescriptive grammar is not only naive and anachronistic, but annoying, counter-progressive, and elitist. Lol.

(now note my use of the oxford comma hahahaha)

And what the hell does "etymologically correct" even mean?

Etymologically speaking, the word "phone" is short for telephone and it's a noun. But it has evolved to become also a verb meaning "to make a phone call."

In order to be etymologically correct, must I now make sure I only use words in their original meanings? Ludicrous.

Actually, it's I am a doctor, am I not?

And the last three are so colloquial as to not be proper English, but spoken in a regional dialect only. I could just as easily say "I ain't got no money" is as correct as "I ain't got any money" even thought it is a double negative because you are giving too much latitude to local usage.

@Thucy - descriptivism is one thing. But when your "descriptivistic" usage makes you sound like a moron hick... Well...

"etymologically correct"... that is an awkward phrase. I'm not entirely sure what I meant when I typed that. lol

I didn't mean to spark a huge debate over descriptive and prescriptive grammar. I just recall that old saying, "Ain't ain't a word," and I found it interesting that it was, originally, a very good word integral to the language and not a (pardon the adjective) "lazy" word.

Of course, I'm blurring the lines of what a word is by calling a contraction a word, but then, I didn't really intend this thread to be a rigorous discussion. If I should be more careful about my word choice in this thread, then I'll shape up next post. =P

It's widespread... I don't know what you mean by local.

More people speak this way than do whole entire European languages, there is no doubt in my mind.

A huge number of Americans including southerners and black people speak this way as well as people in the UK. Add in the fact that popular culture has made it people everywhere understand just as all English speakers know the meaning of "y'all" and you realize that you have something like 200 million people who use ain't as a word.

That's as much as the TOTAL number of speakers of Japanese and German combined.

So...

Look Draug I'm not denying that ain't is not considered polite or correct in certain settings, but to claim that it is not part of the English language is insane. It is an integral part of all forms of English, written, spoken, recorded, and more.

Anyway that's interesting that that's where it came from.

I always thought it came from people saying "isn't" with a very thick accent, just as "innit" also meant "isn't it" originally but now means "right?"

What do you mean by "an integral part," Thucy? Certainly English could function just fine without it.

Integral part meaning that if you don't know what it means or how to use it you don't really have a full grasp of modern English.

I meant it in the same way that "telephone," "okay," and "Internet" are integral parts of the language - you could say what I meant was "words you can't not know and call yourself a speaker of the language."

By colloquial I mean...

"He ain't give a fuck" (replaces: doesn't)
"We ain't been here long" (replaces: have not)

I have enever ever heard these two usages before. and the only time I ever hear "I ain't got no/any money" is from uneducated hicks in the country. NEct thing you know, you'll want me to accept ebonics as part of the English language ang go around saying "I aksed him..." (spelling intentionally incorrect).

Call it elitism all you want, but when I interview a candidate to come work with my company, I look to the way they speek and decide if that is going to gel with my client base. A quaint accent is one thing. Hell, I say "you all" (not y'all) all the time. That is SW Ohio. But if they sound like they dropped out of school in the 8th grade, they will not pass muster and become a consultant in my group.

Like it or not, sounding professional *is* important.

I'm off, but I'll close by passing this thought along:

Any dictionary compiler worth his salt will tell you straight-off that the number one criterion for what is a word, and what is not, is usage. The more it is used, the more a word it is.

This is how "okay" and every other single word you call "proper" became a word. It won't be long, I'm sure, until some of these words are eventually accepted as what you describe as "correct" speech. At the moment they are not, but they *are* words all the same, since their usage is so widespread.

I never said it's not important or that people should not be expected to speak certain ways in certain positions.

I'm just maintaining that ain't and words of a similar status ARE words, whether they are called "correct" by you or not.

There is no logic to the spread of certain words, but some do. Ain't is a good example of one that has a certain appeal. I was raised in Texas around minorities and hicks but my accent and dialect are what you'd call "standard American."

That doesn't stop me from saying "ain't" in all the usages above in relaxed settings, just as I also say "yall," and the like in those same settings. Where I pick it up is not important. I also say "I fancy ___" in the British way sometimes, not because I'm British but just because I know what it means and it comes out of my mouth sometimes.

Maybe "to fancy"meaning "to want" isn't *etymologically correct* (:P) but that doesn't change it's status as a word in correct usage meaning "to want." lol

But the dictionary compiler will also look to a reasonably clear definition as a standard for the word. Ain't is perfectly fine when used in the proper context. Likewise, "I axed him..." is fine if you mean you did a Lizzie Borden on his head. But using it in place of doesn't/don't/haven't and more is not acceptable. If it appears in the dictionary as something other than slang, it will be clearly notated as a contraction for am not. Any other usage will be like saying "I learned him how to talk" or "He did good in school today". Learned and good are words, but those usages, no matter how common, are *not* OK.

"NEct thing you know, you'll want me to accept ebonics as part of the English language ang go around saying "I aksed him..." (spelling intentionally incorrect)."

Hey Draug, this is an interesting point you raise. Ask being pronounced /aks/ actually goes back to Chaucer! "I axe, why the fyfte man Was nought housband to the Samaritan?" (Wife's Prologue 1386)

Check this page out for more information: http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19991216

"Call it elitism all you want, but when I interview a candidate to come work with my company, I look to the way they speek and decide if that is going to gel with my client base."

However, this is where you hit the nail on the head. No matter what history is, no matter what is really truly correct, in the professional world, individuals have to speak a certain way to "mesh."


@Thucy, I thought of a good example of how language can be used incorrectly, /etymologically speaking/. In very royal settings, you may hear "The king his car" instead of "The king's car." This is supposedly very formal, but it is rooted in Renaissance ignorance. In trying to figure out the language, scholars of the day thought "king's" = "king his" and the apostrophe was where letters had fallen out (much like o'clock or sock it to 'em). Of course, they never did figure out "queen's" and "queen her."

This etymology is /wrong/. Understand, the apostrophe would not have been written yet, it would have been written "The kings car." Now it should be clear that the -s is from a genitive case in OE, but when the Renaissance scholars decided that letters had fallen out, they inserted the apostrophe. We retain it today to distinguish between the plural and the singular possessive, but curiously, one can still hear "the king his" or "the queen her" in the very royal and formal setting. This is a use of language that one could call etymologically incorrect.

"However, this is where you hit the nail on the head. No matter what history is, no matter what is really truly correct, in the professional world, individuals have to speak a certain way to "mesh.""

My point is that although you guys may want it to be, this "professional" way of speaking is just as fluid and changing as anything else, it just follows colloquial language by a few years. Or a lot of years if the original colloquialism is perceived to be extremely base.

Which is why it will probably not be till the end of my life or longer till "y'all" as an optional second person plural pronoun will become grammatically accepted, in the dictionary sense.

It will take even longer for it to enter "formal" speech and writing, but it could very well happen.

Y'all are acting as if informal language does not have a grammar or have its own set of rules. Indeed, the grammar you now call "professional" is descended from the colloquial grammar of the past.

Thucy, I don't know what you're even arguing. I've already pointed out that the British still use "an't" in formal settings, more formal than the "professional" talk that Draug is referring to.

Further, your point about "professional is descended from the colloquial grammar of the past" is also already covered by my opening post. "an't" was part of the /paradigm/ until it became an extremely lazy word used for everything.

I also told you that my title stems from the old quip, "Ain't ain't a word." I never claimed in the opening post or elsewhere that "ain't" is not a word (although, technically, no contraction is).

Rereading your opening post, I don't really see what you're even arguing. I suppose my etymology was not clear at the end. When i said the schoolmasters abolished the word entirely, I meant from the classroom. I did not mean they abolished it from the language (how could they?).

I was just taking issue with your implication that it wouldn't have been a word without this etymological precedent. I was saying it was a word already, regardless of the information you enlightened us with. That was my impetus for decrying prescriptivism, which I read implied in your post.

Anyway.

There is a place for standard "correct" English. Yes we all know that there is no one true English etc. But with all the dialects of English, and sociolects and the other "lects" etc it is helpful to have a standard form used by educated speakers and writers (especially professionally or in academia etc), and within that form there is plenty of room for debate about what the "rules" should be. I don't think having that debate implies the other lects are invalid. When we use the term "correct" we are talking about standard "educated" English.

Sure. I don't dispute what you've said spyman.

I do however take issue with the idea that this "correct" language should be fossilized and should not be allowed to incorporate colloquialisms over time.

I also think that people take this too far and correct each others' speech even among friends and, you know, on a game forum. There is no need for that.

Maybe just when you're talking to old people, at work where they care, writing a report, or giving a speech. Maybe not even then in many cases.

So it's one thing to correct someone's grammar in their paper or in a mock interview. It's something else too screencap someone's Facebook status which is written in a dialect and mock it's deviations from standard English. That's just self-righteous.

It is true that some people superficially judge people based on their grammar and spelling. I do too if the same mistakes are made over and over, but on a one-off event? I wouldn't dare, because I myself make numerous grammar mistakes.

So when people say "I'm going to try and get some" or "for all intense and purposes" I get it - they just don't know they're wrong.

And let's be real here for a second - we all fuck up your vs you're and there/their/they're all the time. in a really important report or in the new york times its pretty bad. because in those settings youre supposed to be able to prove that you can. but outside? idgaf

I agree with you Thucy. The funny thing about people correcting other peoples English is how often the corrections themselves are "wrong". Also people can be awfully pedantic about the rules they know, not realizing how many other rules they "break".
And I admit there's plenty that I get wrong. My spelling for starters is atrocious. I could never get by at work without a spell check.

I speel reel goodly like. My nana learned me good. :-)