Comments on: What’s Wrong with “Ain’t”

By: BS Murphy

BS Murphy — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 21:24:08 +0000

When I was young we used the word “aint” and we knew what it meant. It was a “word” because of common usage regardless of the speaker’s intentions.

Later, while still very young, I learned that, “ain’t” aint a word and the reasoning behind it. I never knew there was supposed to be an apostrophe and that it was actually meant to be a contraction of two words.

I say since there aren’t two words (except I just learned the above article), that aint IS a word without the apostrophe by way of common usage, and knowledge. Now, put THAT into the dictionary!

By: Andrew Toynbee

Andrew Toynbee — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 09:15:20 +0000

After having read Emma’s comment above, I remembered hearing local English kids using both “I ain’t” and “I i’nt” – as if it had stemmed from “I isn’t”.

Funny old world, ain’t it?

By: Emma

Emma — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:11:40 +0000

I’m intrigued reading this – coming from England (Midlands), I hear “Aren’t I?” much more than “Ain’t” …

That said, I have memories of sitting on the top deck of a bus as a teenager & hearing two younger kids in front of me discussing the houses that we were passing:

“That’s a posh house, ain’t it” said the first, “you mean, ‘innit’” said the second firmly!

By: Garbeld

Garbeld — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:47:49 +0000

@ibooklover123:
I wouldn’t say that “ain’t” is the gateway slang word, but that the issue of improper grammar is the result of a far more fundamental problem of people not bothering to learn and understand the language they use on a rational level, instead being content to rely on our human faculties of pattern recognition to pick up on the way language is COMMONLY used.

Also, what is wrong with double negatives? They may be redundant, but there is no inherent logical error or risk of ambiguity in them that comes immediately to my mind.

By: Tiago Vilaça

Tiago Vilaça — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:13:39 +0000

Hi there,

I feel like apologizing. Booklover is right when he states that the correct idea for ‘I ain’t got no choice’ is ‘I HAVE no choice’. Although, it doesn’t really matter. My point was about the repeated information which is unnecessary in English. We don’t say ‘He doesn’t knows’ nor ‘I did slept’. Once is enough.

My intention is just to highlight the fact that we use it intentionally in order to be more emphatic. Don’t you agree? Double negatives are taught as beeing wrong and that’s exactly the reason why we use it so often: just to have someone’s attention.

Dave, I’m really sorry to ask you such a dumb question, but I can’t help it: Why did my sentence baffle you? Is it that bad?
Or am I beeing naive once more?
I’m more confused now.

After all, you guys are saying that it is Ok to use it or not?
The matter is relevant or not?
Are we gonna get anywhere here?

I’m sorry if I caused more confusion. I just think it’s ok depending on the situation. Lots of expressions we use daily are ‘wrong’ according to grammar. We choose to use them to shape our speech with the exact level of emphasis ( now I’m afraid of using this word) we intent. Don’t we?