2021-04-30
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด – A – amn't & ain’t
แนะนำการใช้ ตามที่ส่วนใหญ่ใช้ แต่ละท้องถิ่น
ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง amn't = ‘AM-uhnt’
ออกเสียง ain’t = ‘EYNT’
Dictionary.com
USAGE NOTE FOR AIN'T
As a substitute for am not, is not, and are not in declarative sentences,
ain't is more common in uneducated speech than in educated,
but it occurswith some frequency
in the informal speech of the educated,
especiallyin the southern and south-central states.
This is especially true of the interrogative use of ain't I?
as a substitutefor the formal
and—to some—stilted am I not? or for aren't I?,
considered by someto be ungrammatical, or for the awkward
—and rare in American speech— amn't I?
Some speakers avoid any of the preceding forms
by substituting Isn't that so (true, the case)?
Ain't occurs in humorous or set phrases:
Ain't it the truth!
She ain't what she used to be.
It ain't funny.
The word is also used for emphasis:
That just ain't so!
It does not appear in formal writing except for deliberate effect
in such phrasesor to represent speech.
As a substitutefor have not or has not
and—occasionally in Southern speech— do not, does not, and did not,
it is nonstandard exceptin similar humorous uses:
You ain't heard nothin' yet!
See also aren't.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Usage Notes
'Aren't I?' or 'Are I Not?'
'Aren't I'was considered an error for much of the 20th century.
These days, it's widely accepted. What happened?
What to Know
Aren't I is an accepted phrase for "am I not"
even though when the conjunction is broken down
it appears to be short for "are not I,"
which doesn't agree with standard rules of grammar.
One theoryis that those who wanted to avoid the phrase ain't
for fear of ridicule opted for "aren't I" as opposed to"amn't" or another construction.
What happens when a grammatical mistake?
that is commonly made by speakers of our language
comes to be viewed as"proper"
(or at least no longer viewed as a mistake)?
Is there a parade? Is there a small private ceremony,
in which the previously offending usage
is given a certificateof good standing and a cigar?
Is a memosent out to all speakers and writers of the language,
alerting them to the change?
No, none of these things happen.
In fact, based on the readily available evidence that we have,
these changes tend to occur with a whimper,
rather thana bang. Let’s look at the case of aren’t I.
'Aren't I' Broken Down
If you examinethe version of aren’t I
that has no contractions
it quickly becomes apparent what the problem is:
“are not I.” Not onlyis the word order out of whack,
butthe pronoun does not agree withthe verb at all.
Yet despite the factthat this violates some basic rules of grammar
that most of us are comfortable with,
aren’t I manages to see use in the speech of educated people every day,
without occasioning much of a fuss.
In fact, it doesn’t just see use in speech,
butmay also commonly be found in written and edited prose
(especially when it is in a slightly informal register):
Why is Aren't I Accepted?
So why do we usethis turn of phrase?
Onepossibility is that ain’t isto blame.
Were we to matchour verbs and pronouns correctly,
we would say “am I not,” rather than “are I not”;
the contracted versionof this might be written as
either amn’t (which sounds unwieldy to most speakers of US English)
oras ain’t.
Some grammarians have argued in favor of ain’t being accepted
as a shortened version of “am not,”
butthe word has been so thoroughly aspersed
that this sense never gained acceptance.
Therefore, if you feel social pressure to not say ain’t,
and it feels phonetically awkward to say amn’t,
you end up saying aren’t I.
In the early and mid-20thcentury,
a number of American usage guides
complainedabout the use of aren’t I.
In recent years, however,
the word has achieved a degree of acceptance
in speech and colloquialprose.
There was no official decree and no pronouncement signaling this change;
even thoughthe use of aren’t I gained acceptance relatively quickly,
it still took several decades of varying opinion
before it became widely allowed.
This is not the first time that we have changed
the way that we use a particular pronoun
over the objections of some who wished it would not change.
In 1660, George Fox, a founder of the Religious Society of Friends,
was sore wroth over the fact that
people had been using the pronoun you in the singular.
Rather than write a snippy letter to his local newspaper,
Fox wrote an entire book on the subject.
Fox’s book had the catchy title of
A Battle-Door for Teachers & Professors to Learn Singular & Plural;
You to Many,
and Thou to One;
Singular One, Thou;
Plural Many, You.
A sample of how he felt on this matter comes early in the book,
when he wrote
“is he not a Novice, and Unmannerly, and an Ideot, and a Fool,
that speaks
You to one, which is not to be spoken to a singular, but to many?”
In spite of such recriminations,
the English-speaking people continued using you
to refer to a single person,
and somehow our language has survived to this day.
Aren’t I would appear to be well on the way to joining the singular you
as part of our accepted language.
There is no sign yet that are not I will be joining it anytime soon.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Ain’t
There’s a backwoodsy tinge, nay a taint
With dialectical words such as ain’t
But that word’s often found Used by writers renowned
At least on occasions when they wish to sound quaint
When Merriam-Websterpublished the third edition
of its Unabridged Dictionary in 1961
a number of critics were horrified to find that
ain’t was defined in its pages.
These critics were either unmoved by, or failed to read,
the noteaccompanying ain’t,
which read “though disapproved by many
and more common in less educated speech,
used orallyin most parts of the U.S.
by many cultivated speakers esp. in the phrase ain’t I.”
Ain’t
We do not makewords.
Furthermore, we do not decide
which words are real and which are fake.
What we, and all other dictionaries, do
is to pay attention to how the language is used,
and attempt to catalogue this usage as faithfully as possible.
Ain't has been in widespread use since the first half of the 18th century.
For those keeping score at home,
this is our second limerick on ain't,
which is in keeping with the proportion of hate mail it gets.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Is ain't a word?: Usage Guide
Although widely disapproved as nonstandard,
and more common inthe habitual speech of the less educated,
ain't is flourishing in American English.
It is used in both speech and writing
to catch attentionand to gain emphasis.
This informal ain't iscommonly distinguished from habitual ain't
by its frequent occurrence in fixed constructions and phrases.
well—class it ain't
— Cleveland Amory for money? say it ain't so, Jimmy!
— Andy Rooney you ain't seen nothing yet
that ain't hay
two out of three ain't bad
if it ain't broke, don't fix it
In fiction ain't is used for purposes of characterization;
in familiar correspondence it tends to be
the markof a warm personal friendship.
It has also long been commonly used in popular songs,
bothfor metrical reasons and for the informal tone it conveys.
Ain't She Sweet
It Ain't Necessarily So.
Our evidence shows British use to be much the same as American.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
ain't (ānt)
Nonstandard
1. Contraction of am not.
2. Used also as a contraction for are not, is not, hasnot, 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
asa 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 had been originally used by the upper classes as well.
At the same time
ain't'suses 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 bethat these extended uses helped fuel the negative reaction.
Whatever the case,
criticismof ain't by usage commentators and teachershas 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 toenjoy extensive use in speech.
Eveneducated and upper-class speakers
see nosubstitute 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 irregular,was found acceptable for use in speech
by a majority of the Usage Panel as long ago as 1964,
but in writing there is no acceptable substitute for the stilted am I not?
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary
usage:
As a substitutefor am not, is not, and are not
in declarative sentences,
ain’t is more common in uneducated speech than in educated,
but it occurs with some frequency
in the informal speech of the educated,
esp.in the southern and south-central states.
This is especially true of the interrogative ain't I?
used as a substitutefor the formal am I not? or for aren't I?
(considered by some to be ungrammatical)
or for the awkward amn't I? (which is rare in American speech).
Some speakers avoidall of the preceding forms
by substituting Isn't that so (true, the case)?
ain’t occurs in set phrases: Ain't it the truth!
The word is also used for emphasis: That just ain't so!
It does not appearin formal writing except for
deliberate(often humorous) effect or to represent speech.
As a substitute for have not or has not and
- occasionally in Southern speech
- do not, does not, and did not,
it is nonstandard except in similar humorous uses:
You ain't seen nothin' yet! See also aren't.
Dictionary of Problem Words in English
amn't
This is a contractionfor am I not?
Ithas not been so fully accepted or so widely used
ashave been hasn’t (has not), weren’t (werenot),
and other similar shortened forms.
One reason for its lack of acceptance is its sound.
At present, amn’tis considered silly or pretentious.