Am, too, misbehaving. Ain't you?

Tim Hager of the Beaufort (South Carolina) Gazette wrote that he had turned off Savannahian Paula Deen’s Food Channel cooking show just after the host said “I ain’t gonna.” He went on to say, as a North Carolina native, “I haven’t used the word ‘ain’t’ in 25 years. Why? Because I learned somewhere around age 6, that you weren’t supposed to.”  [1]

As for me, I’m conflicted about the use of “ain’t.” I strongly agree that it shouldn’t be used to promote a stereotypes to the rest of the world. On the other hand, language schools to rid people of their Southern accents are an even bigger slap to the collective face of Dixie. 

More to the point, I am a proud user of “ain’t,” double negatives, and expressions like “I don’t think” (without the “so”).  Not at work, I'm not.  At the library (you won’t catch me saying “liberry”), I say “am not” and “isn’t” and all the proper contractions, qualified by a single, solitary negation. On the job, I even distinguish between “who” and “whom.”

But at ease, among family and friends, I will lapse into the “A” word and all its allied vices, either for fun or emphasis. The split is effortless and feels natural, because it is -- here in South Carolina as in many other cultures. 

Take the speakers of Haitian Creole, for one example.  Think of the language as a complex spectrum of “pure” Creole (“Mwen pa gegnen” for “I don’t have”) all the way up to something known as an “acrolect” that approaches the very-different French of government and education (“Je n’ai pas”). What level Haitians use will depend on their level of education and on the nature of the social situation. All Haitians know Creole, and government officials or educators use it to “wind down” at parties and in other informal circumstances. But for an outsider to address a high-ranking Haitian in Creole instead of French would be a major faux pas. 

Another phenomenon, diglossa, affects Arabic speakers wherever the language is spoken. There are local dialects so distinctive that people in one community may not understand speakers only 300 miles (500 km) away. Educated Arabs speak both standard Arabic and their home-grown form.

At any rate, the authoritative H. W. Fowler called “ain’t” “merely colloquial and as used for ‘isn’t’ is an uneducated blunder and serves no useful purpose. But it is a pity that ‘ain’t’ for ‘am not,’ being a natural contraction and supplying a real want, should shock us as though tarred with the same brush.”  Fowler said that “ain’t I?” is as sound a contraction for “am I not?” as “aren’t I?” and the “amn’t I?” of Ireland and Scotland.  The use of the full form, “am I not?,” he concluded, “betrays the speaker’s sneaking fear that the colloquially respectable and indeed almost universal ‘aren’t I?’ is ‘bad grammar’ and that ‘ain’t I?” will convict him of low breeding.” [3]

Just think: what if Ira Gershwin had written a song entitled, “It’s Not Necessarily So?” Or if Fats Waller and Harry Brooks had used textbook grammar in this 1929 hit song:

“No one to talk with
All by myself.
No one to walk with
But I'm happy on the shelf.
Ain't misbehavin',
I'm savin' my love for you."

Sources Cited:

[1] Hager, Tim. "Embracing negative stereotypes is not the best way for the South to rise again. Beaufort (South Carolina) Gazette, October 14, 2007 http://www.beaufortgazette.com/features/features_columns/tim_hager/story/6697441p-5970616c.html. Accessed on October 15, 2007.

[2] Gall, Timothy L. (Editor). "Ma'dan (Marsh Arabs)," reviewed by S. Abed-Kotob, in the Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures   and Daily Life. Volume 3: Asia and Oceania. New York: Gale Research, 1998.

[3] Fowler, F. W. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. 2nd edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965; p. 52.