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From: doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Gender-Specific Pronouns (and "ain't")
Message-ID: <275@terak.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-Jan-85 16:03:13 EST
Article-I.D.: terak.275
Posted: Mon Jan 21 16:03:13 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 24-Jan-85 19:33:14 EST
References: <353@cadovax.UUCP> <914@amdahl.UUCP> <19506@lanl.ARPA>
Organization: Terak Corporation, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Lines: 26

> > William Safire wrote an interesting essay on the grammatical
> > appropriatness of "Ain't I?" (it came from a contraction
> > of "Am not I?", necessarily interrogative).  But "ain't" is such
> > a tainted word these days we will probably never bring it back.
> > (Unfortunately I don't have this particular article of Safire's).
> > 
> > The story with "ain't" was that people were using ungrammatically
> > ("ain't she sweet?") so our fearless defenders of the language,
> > English teachers everywhere, eradicated its use by implying it
> > was "grammatically incorrect", even when used correctly as
> > "ain't I?".

Gee, I was always told that "ain't" was a word used by "colored folk"
and should never be used by a "proper white boy".  

At the time there were a lot of things that "proper white boys"
mustn't say and mustn't do because those things were said and done
by "coloreds".

**** Please no flames ****
I do not approve of the above attitude; I am only reporting what I
was told, not what I believe to be right-thinking.
**** Please no flames ****

-- 
Doug Pardee -- Terak Corp. -- !{hao,ihnp4,decvax}!noao!terak!doug