“You” is second-person plural; “thee” and “thou” are second-person singular. I’m with you on the gender-neutral pronoun thing, though.
In years past, I’ve also seen “amn’t” instead of “ain’t”, as well as “ben’t” used as a contraction for “be not”.
Who said “ain’t” is better, rather than just different?
How can one word be grammar, good or bad?
“There’s too much space between Pigs and And and And and Hogs.”
Ain’t isn’t in common usage as has been noted. I haven’t looked, not having a copy of the OED handy, but I’m surprised it isn’t marked “slang” or “archaic.”
Amn’t makes more sense, and is harder to say, although many a small child learning the rules of contractions will use it.
Not only is it not random, it’s economical and behaves itself grammatically (once you get over the fact that it is generally considered non-standard). That’s why it’s so persistent.
Languages usually have good reasons for doing the things they do.
mushROOM mushROOM
…unless you’re in a location where it is in common usage, as has also been noted.
I think that right here we see the inherent weakness of “ain’t” and the entire descriptivist argument. If we’re supposed to believe that adding “ain’t” to the Queen’s English will improve the language, then a clear definition must exist. So if we all said that “ain’t” can only replace “am not”, we’d at least have a clear, precise definition. The problem is that the young hoodlums who go around using “ain’t” don’t use it specifically in cases where the first person singular version of “to be” is needed along with a negative. They use “ain’t” for any subject, any tense, and any case they feel like. Then they proceed to use it in place of other verbs. In fact my dictionary now tells me that “ain’t” can stand for “are not” or “is not” as well as “has not”, “does not”, “did not”, and so forth. One of the many problems with “ain’t” is that it naturally attracts lazy speakers who just can’t be bothered to decided what verb they really want. That’s what I mean by decay of the language. If we have people who just can’t be bothered to think about the difference between “to be”, “to have”, “to do”, and many others, then communication becomes less effective.
So? What’s wrong with having an invariant negative form of “to be”?
Except that it is theorized that “ain’t”, when used to replace constructions other than “am not”, is a variation of a contraction historically used in various southwestern English dialects: “ben’t” or “bain’t”, a contraction for “be not”. If this is the case, then there are historical reasons for the use of “ain’t” as a general-purpose negative of the verb “to be”, that don’t involve spurious arguments such as “laziness” or “ignorance”. Inhabitants of the West Country certainly knew (and know) how to speak their native language.
Does any of this impede communication? If I say “He ain’t gone yet” do you have any problem understanding me? If you do, I submit that you do not understand English very well.
Also, “are” and “is” are two forms of the same verb, and “does” and “do” are two forms of the same verb.
Or maybe they know precisely which verb they want, and the form of that that verb they wish to use is “ain’t”.
Could you please point to a specific instance of English which can be said to be totally “pure” and “pristine”, without having been afflicted with any sort of decay at all? What is the baseline English we are supposedly trying to get back to, after all this decay has taken place?
Fluent speakers of a language intuitively select words that will carry across their meaning. If there were a need to distinguish between “to do” and “to have”, rest asssured that users of “ain’t” would distinguish between them. If “ain’t” is replacing “to do” and “to have” in certain constructions, then there was never any important distinction between those verbs in that situation.
Two things. First, Miller, some day I gotta buy you a beer. Second, I love the Buffalo buffalo sentence–it used to be my sig file. Third–three things!
There’s an extra “And” in there, unless the sign is dumb.
Daniel
Oops–in addition to there being an extra “And,” there’s an extra “and.”
Daniel
That may be true. It is certainly irrelevant. If you’re confusing people today, it doesn’t help them to know that the confusion results from a word that originated from “bain’t” in southwestern English dialects.
Yes, I certainly do. Suppose somebody tells me, “Bob wants to go to the aquarium, but he ain’t gone yet.” This admits at least two meanings.
Meaning 1: Bob has a desire to go to the aquarium at some point in his life, but he has never in his life been to the aquarium yet.
Meaning 2: Bob currently intends to go to the aquarium, but at this time he has not begun the trip to the aquarium.
One might say, “Bob wants to go to the aquarium, but he hasn’t gone yet.” That would definitely give you meaning 1. One might say, “Bob wants to go to the aquarium, but he isn’t gone yet.” That would definitely give you meaning 2. “Ain’t” doesn’t distinguish between the two. Meaning is not conveyed and communication fails. And as you can see, the problem arises because I do understand English, not because I don’t.
Yes, but “are” and “does” are certainly not two forms of the same verb.
To answer you questions in order: no, and I’ve no clue. But just because some decay has always existed doesn’t mean that we should strive to maximize it.
That’s a nice thought, but you’ve just proved it incorrect. The example you created above shows that even a very fluent and educated speaker can sometimes fail to notice potential ambiguity. Hence we are best off with a language that minimizes possibilities for ambiguity.
Perhaps if it were a century earlier and we were upper-class English gentleman sitting down to cigars and brandy at the club, we could have a nice academic debate about. Now, however, it’s an emergency situation. You can go to any one of thousands (or perhaps millions) of message boards and see the English language breaking down into gibberish. If dictionaries exist to be a reference of any words that English-speakers use, then they’ll have to include “teh”, “htat”, “mroe”, “suxor”, “blieve”, and anything else that frequently results from 12-year-old AIM users hitting a wrong key on their keyboards. And if the same philosophy spreads, punctuation guides will have to explain when to use seven exclamation points versus when to use eight. Usage guides will have to clarify when to use “ROTFLMAO” and when a mere “LMAO” is appropriate. And I’m not even sure which authority takes charge of :), ;), ::), etc.
Then linguistic authorities exist for a reason. They’re gatekeepers against linguistic anarchy. Past generations might have had good reason to accuse them of being too strict, but now the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction.
You are quite right. Hence, any user of “ain’t” will either rely on context to make their meaning clear (“Is there anyone else who’s going to the aquarium?” “Bob wants to go the aquarium, but he ain’t gone yet; he’s around here somewhere”), will add additional words clarifying their meaning (“Bob wants to go to the aquarium, but he ain’t never gone yet”), or will be satisfied with the ambiguity.
If you are this distressed by possible ambiguity in a construction, then God forbid you ever try to learn a language such as Mandarin or Japanese.
True, but it is certainly not a requirement of clear communication that the two be distinguished when used as part of a compound tense. There are plenty of languages that work perfectly fine without feeling the need to distinguish between “Has he gone?” and “Did he go?”.
“Decay” implies there was a time when there was not decay. If “decay” has always existed, then that shows that what you call “decay” (and what sensible people call “language change”) has always existed, and is in fact the natural order of things.
So you’ll get started right away on trying to convince everybody to switch to speaking Lojban, right? Good luck with that.
Utter bullshit.
It’s not gibberish; you are merely unfamiliar with it. I, for one, have no problem with such things. If you have difficulty with an expression such as “that is teh suxorz”, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with that expression, just that you are ignorant of the rules of a particular emerging dialect of English.
“Linguistic anarchy” is the NATURAL STATE OF THINGS. It’s how language has always been, and how languages change and evolve. You’re trying to sweep back the tides with a pushbroom, and if prescriptivists choose to continue their futile efforts, there’s nothing for those of us who understand linguistics to do but sit back and point and laugh. Why don’t you ask the Académie how well they’re doing lately.
Current usage. I live in Florida, and when I first moved here over 30 years ago “ain’t” was
very common. Sometimes (usually just for pejorative purposes) it slips out when I’m working
with my students, and they all kind of look at me funny. Indeed I’m not sure of the last time
I heard someone (other than moi` of course) who said it in my presence.
MTA: It’s also rare that I get a student with an honest-to-God southern accent either. I think I
had one about 2 years ago or so…
Are you talking about the “traditional”, non-rhotic coastal southern accent? I’ve read that that accent has been dwindling in recent years, being replaced either with Standard American English or with an accent closer to the rhotic, inland southern accent that was so popularized by country music.
It’s certainly relevant to the argument that “ain’t” is a signifier of decay in the language, when rather it seems to be a case of parrallel evolution.
I don’t think the distinction between the two forms is nearly as clear cut as you suggest. Form one is functionally identical to form two, although the reverse isn’t quite true. Regardless, as yBeafy pointed out, context is a large part of meaning. I have trouble imagining a scenario in which the context of the statement “Bob ain’t gone yet,” wouldn’t be immediatly clear. What was meant by the answer would almost certainly be clear from the circumstances under which the question was asked.
I rather think that if “decay” has always existed, what you’re looking at isn’t decay at all.
I don’t mean to bring in all the political baggage by bringing up Orwell, because I don’t mean to suggest that not liking the word “ain’t” is akin to totalitarianism, or anything like that, but I can’t help thinking about that character in 1984, who had the thankless task of translating the great poets into Newspeak. I don’t think you can have poetry without ambiguity. And I don’t think you can have language without poetry. Or at least, I’m not sure it’s worth having.
I thought I remembered reading somewhere that ain’t was often used in 19th century England by the uppercrust of the blueblood classes. Here and now it’s assumed to be low class talk. I found the irony of the whole contradiction rather remarkable.
I’m pretty sure that if we were 19th century English gentlemen, you be saying we were in an emergency situation because of all that Cockney rhyming slang.
Now you’ve completely jumped rails. You’re not railing against language change here, you’re complaining about poor typing skills and shorthand.
Right, because prior to the internet, nobody ever used multiple exclamation points in their writing. I’m pretty sure the style guids already cover using multiple exclamation points, and have for quite some time. I understand they’re generally against it.
I’m surprised, given the way you rail against ambiguity, that you’re also opposed to smilies. After all, there’s nothing more ambiguous than irony, so what better remedy than a 
to clearly label ironic intent?
No, they really don’t. Language existed for tens of thousands of years before anyone decided they needed to start writing down all the rules. People communicated perfectly well before the authorities existed, they communicated perfectly well when the authorities were followed slavishly, and they communicated perfectly well when the authorities were ignored. The point being, the authorities are pretty much useless.
Well, “useless” is a bit harsh. But linguists are to language like ornithologists are to birds. They can make many interesting observations, from which we can learn a great deal, but people no more need a linguist to tell them how to speak than a bird needs an ornithologist to tell it how to fly. We’re the authorities on language. You, me, and the twelve year old calling people “fags” in CounterStrike. Humans invented language, and we reinvent it everyday. We all share the patent on it, and changing it at need is the birthright of every one of us.