Friday, March 15, 2013

Ain't

Can anybody tell me why "ain't" has an apostrophe?

5 comments:

  1. my guess is it is in the place of the 'o' in not. (like how do not becomes 'don't.) No idea why 'is' is replaced with 'ai' though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well, yeah, it would be in place of the O if it were a true contraction. But as you say, it's not short for "ai not." So is it just me, or couldn't we get along just spelling it "aint"?

    ReplyDelete
  3. And why "amn't" can't be used :(

    ReplyDelete
  4. Same goes for "won't" and "shan't". There must be meaning conferred by the apostrophe (i.e that it means "not"). Saves mix ups with "wont".

    ReplyDelete
  5. Here you go, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain't

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.