ain't (was: The Joy of (free) Tools)

Hi John,

> From: John Starrett <jstarret@...>
> To: <MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2001 7:58 AM
> Subject: Re: [MMM] The Joy of (free) Tools
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@a...> wrote:
> > Devil advocate again and not directed at Jeff here either.
> > What about sampling, you thieves, you know the kind of sampling
> > i mean too. it Ann's no different than software.
> <snip>
>
> I was confused for a few seconds again with Ann's.

Me too. Kraig's coining his own slang now.

> It should be ain't, I guess. Since ain't is slang anyway,
> why do we bother with the apostrophe?

At the risk of going quite off-topic...

From this online dictionary:
http://actors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.
com

>> ain't (a:nt) [my best ASCII rendition of their pronunciation]
>> Nonstandard
>> Contraction of _am not_.
>> Used also as a contraction for _are not_, _is not_, _has not_, and _have
not_.
>>
>> Usage Note: _Ain't_ has a long history of controversy. It first appeared
>> in 1778, evolving from an earlier _an't_, which arose almost a century
>> earlier as a contraction of _are not_ and _am not_. In fact, _ain't_
arose
>> at the tail end of an era that saw the introduction of a number of
>> our most common contractions, including _don't_ and _won't_. But while
>> _don't_ and _won't_ eventually became accepted at all levels of speech
>> and writing, _ain't_ was to receive a barrage of criticism in the
>> 19th century for having no set sequence of words from which it can
>> be contracted and for being a "vulgarism," that is, a term used by
>> the lower classes, although _an't_ at least had been originally used
>> by the upper classes as well. At the same time _ain't_'s uses were
>> multiplying to include _has not_, _have not_, and _is not_, by influence
>> of forms like _ha'n't_ and _i'n't_. It may be that these extended uses
>> helped fuel the negative reaction. Whatever the case, criticism of
>> _ain't_ by usage commentators and teachers has not subsided, and the
>> use of ain't is often regarded as a sign of ignorance. �But despite
>> all the attempts to ban it, _ain't_ continues to enjoy extensive use
>> in speech. Even educated and upper-class speakers see no substitute
>> in folksy expressions such as _Say it ain't so_ and _You ain't seen
>> nothin' yet_. �The stigmatization of _ain't_ leaves us with no happy
>> alternative for use in first-person questions. The widely used
>> _aren't I?_ though illogical, was found acceptable for use in speech
>> by a majority of the Usage Panel in an earlier survey, but in writing
>> there is no acceptable substitute for the stilted _am I not?_.

love / peace / harmony ...

-"professor Monzo" (as Dan Stearns recently called me, for correcting his
typo)
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

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