Why Can’t We Say “Ain’t”?

rogersgeorge on October 28th, 2017

This Speed Bump comic reminds me of the joke: There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don’t. You know, of course, that 10 is binary for “two,” right?

When I was a kid, the conventional wisdom was that people tended to be good at (or like) math or language, but not both. I think it’s kind of true, but I’ve met a lot of exceptions, including myself.

But this comic also reminds me of a problem we have in English. (ahem) We ain’t got a good contraction for “am not.” I remember my sixth-grade teacher telling us that if we wanted to ask “ain’t I?” we should say “am I not?” It sounded strange to me, but I’ve gotten used to it.

“Ain’t” is a perfectly good word, but I’m afraid it’ll never escape its low class roots. Of course you can still use the word—just say you’re being just a wee bit folksy.

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