2021-05-08
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด – A – aren’t I?
แนะนำการใช้ ตามที่ส่วนใหญ่ใช้ แต่ละท้องถิ่น
ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค
Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง aren’t = ‘AHR-uhnt’ or ‘AHRNT’
Dictionary.com
USAGE NOTE FOR AREN'T
The social unacceptability of ain't,
the historical contraction of am not,
has created a gap in the pattern of verbal contractions.
I'm not, the alternative to I ain't,
has nocorresponding interrogative form except ain't I.
In questions, ain't I
is often avoided by the use of aren't I:
I'm right, aren't I?
Aren't Ion the list?
This aren't is simply a different outcome
of the same historical development that yielded ain't,
but the fact that it is spelled and pronounced
like the contractionof are not (as in You are staying, aren't you?)
apparently gives it, for some, an acceptability that ain't lacks.
The useof aren't I is objected to by others
because a declarative counterpart, I aren't, does not exist.
Many speakers, however, prefer aren't I
to the uncontracted, rather formal am I not.
See also ain't, contraction.
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 whenthe conjunction is broken down
it appears to be short for "are not I,"
which doesn't agreewith standard rules of grammar.
One theory is 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 mistakethat 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 certificate of good standing and a cigar?
Is a memo sent 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 than a bang.
Let’s lookat the the case of aren’t I.
'Aren't I' Broken Down
If you examine the version of aren’t I
thathas no contractions
it quickly becomes apparent what the problem is: “are not I.”
Not only is the word order out of whack,
but the pronoun does not agree with the verb at all.
Yet despite the fact that 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.
"So why isn't—why aren't I more concerned?"
—The Wall Street Journal, (transcript, interview with John Williams, President, San Francisco Fed.), 17 May 2016
"Why aren't I 50 points ahead?" an animated Mrs. Clinton
asked last week in a video address to the Laborers' International Union of North America meeting in Las Vegas.
—Amy Chozick, The New York Times, 29 Sept. 2016
“So, I'm probably going to eat those words, aren't I. Yeah.”
—Rep. Paul Ryan (Political Transcript Wire), press conference, 29 Sept. 2016
In fact, it doesn’t just see use in speech,
but may alsocommonly be found in written and edited prose
(especially when it is in a slightly informal register):
Aren't I incredibly generous to break my own one-prize-per-week rule
to give him a $5 mug or bag and a $1 air "freshener"?
—Pat Myers, The Washington Post, 17 Apr., 2014
That's right—I'm obeying a stop sign. Isn't it amazing?
Aren't I an incredibly law-abiding cyclist?
—Barbara Brotman, Chicago Tribune, 17 Jun. 2013
Though I don't play Scrabble to make new friends,
whenever I see this message I always feel slightly insulted.
Come on, "scrabblerocks121," aren't I worthy of the most minimal chat?
—Meg Wolitzer, The New York Times, 18 Sept. 2011
Whyis Aren't I Accepted?
So, why do we usethis turn of phrase?
One possibility isthat ain’t is to blame.
Were we to match our verbs and pronouns correctly,
we would say“am I not,” rather than “are I not”;
the contracted version of this might be written as either amn’t
(which sounds unwieldy to most speakers of US English)
or as ain’t.
Some grammarianshave argued
in favorof ain’t being accepted as a shortened versionof “am not,”
butthe word has been so thoroughly aspersed
that this sense never gained acceptance.
Therefore, ifyou 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-20th century,
a number of American usage guides complained about the use of aren’t I.
In recent years, however, the word has achieved a degree of acceptance
in speechand colloquial prose.
There was no official decree and no pronouncement
signaling this change; even though the use of aren’t I
gained acceptancerelatively quickly,
it still took several decades of varying opinion
before it became widely allowed.
This is not the first timethat we have changed
the waythat we use a particular pronoun over the objectionsof some
who wishedit 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 yetthat are not I will be joining it anytime soon.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary
usage:
The interrogative first-personuse of aren't
(I'm right, aren't I?) is objected to by some
because a declarative counterpart, I aren't, does not exist.
Others, however, who would not use ain't,
still prefer aren't I to the rather formal alternative am I not.
See also ain't.
[Please saee ain’tat GotoKnow#690072]
Dictionary of Problem Words in English
aren’t I?
Aren’t I is ungrammatical and not entirely logical
(no one would say “I are not”)
The phrase,
which seem pompousor affected
to most users of AmericanEnglish,
is often employed by educated English-men
and, occasionally, byspeakers
in the Northeastern part of the United States.
