The title says it all. “I amn’t doing that”, “I’m a great guy, amn’t I?” etc. are common enough around these parts. Is this contraction used elsewhere?
I am pretty sure y’all are the only ones who use that particular word. I lived there for twelve years and never got used to hearing it!
I can’t even say that without spraining my upper lip.
I remember my great-aunt using it. She was Australian born, but with an Irish family background.
I’ve heard it a few times in the midwest US.
Specifically in areas with folks of dutch ancestry.
That and “mayn’t”
We’ve got patches of Scots-Irish and German ancestry in my neck of the woods where I come from in NE Texas, and I know I recognized the “Amn’t” contraction when I saw it. And I’m pretty sure we have some Dutch as well.
[http://130.166.124.2/USpage1.html]Digital Atlas of the US, from a professor at CSUN. That uses the 1990 census, and may not be completely accurate, but the red circles on the Texas portion of the map look right to me – tons of Scots-Irish, Dutch, and German.
(wow. if you look at the percent German ancestry, the north central part of the US pretty much is a checkerboard covered in regular red dots)
I remember flatly insisting, at the age of three or four, that amen’t was too a real word, although my mother gently explained several times that it wasn’t a word that other people used.
My brother and I used it for several years, to be silly.
I have never heard it. PA, USA.
It was quite common here when I was growing up (60s & 70s) and I still hear it, and use it, occassionally.
I don’t hear it as much as I used to, though.
Not uncommon in early Modern English. Here’s a few cites from OED which show the progression from amn’t to an’t and eventually to ain’t.
*1691 Athenian Gaz. 11 May, If I amn’t mistaken, the pinch is here.
1701 G. FARQUHAR Sir Harry Wildair IV. ii. 34, I an’t to be believ’d.
1828 E, BULWER-LYTTON Pelham II. xxv. 260 A’n’t we behind hand?*
I have never heard it. What does it sound like? “A-munt”?
I would have guessed it sounded like “amt.”
AM-int. Like “aren’t” except “am” instead of “are” for the first syllable.
Edit: Assuming you pronounce “aren’t” in two syllables. I’m sure not everyone does that.
“Ah-mint”. It just occurred to me the other day that I’ve never heard an American or other English native speaker use it. I use it all the time. I pronounce “aren’t” one or two syllables, depending.
I’ve never heard it on the West Coast (OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, CA, NV).
I take major offence at that article, as a resident of south-east England where the local dialect most certainly does retain ‘ain’t’! And ‘innit’ for ‘isn’t it’, and ‘do-it’ for ‘does it’. And so on. (Edit: and not the same ‘innit’ as Estuary English, either.)
Thet hint how we d’say 'er up here, bor.
What exactly is offensive about it?