Ain't Necessarily So

'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.' - Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll


I began college with a double major - English Literature and Philosophy. My Dad's comment was, "Great, you can think about trying to get a f@#*in' job." I would have been upset if I wasn't jealous of such an excellent retort. 


My English Lit knowledge helped in my Logic class during an oral exam. When asked to explain Logic, I responded with that quote. The Franciscan brother who taught the course looked at me without saying a word. I continued explaining that Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll's real name) was a mathematician and logician eruditely illuminating on the logic inherent in the quote. When I finished, Brother Vianney quipped, "Curiouser and curiouser" I bowed to him in acknowledgement of his maintaining the Carroll allusion. Since I was being graded, I discretely refrained from pointing out that while my quote was from Through the Looking Glass, his was from Alice in Wonderland. 


I did get a job teaching grammar in a parochial elementary school. Several years later I became the Fredo Corleone of my family and went to learn the casino business. However, language remains a passion for me. English is fluid, expressive and expansive. It collects words and phrases from a host of sources making them its own. A myriad of exceptions exist for every rule. Many "rules" are arbitrary and became so, not for the language's sake, but for political or socioeconomic reasons.


That leads us, circuitously I admit, to today's subject matter - AIN'T. We have all been taught that this word is vulgar slang not to be used by polite, educated individuals. But it ain't so. The word was an acceptable contraction of "I am not" into the 19th Century.


No one belittles a speaker for saying "Aren't I?" This interrogative dissects as "Are I not?" Correctly is should be "Am I not?"; ergo, the correct contraction would be "Ain't I?". What caused this calumniated contraction to evoke such wretchedness?


As the 19th moved into the 20th century, the upper class decided ain't's usage beneath them. Commoners and the working-classes used it, and patricians decided to banish it from polite English. It remained in use with the the working class, and other "undesirables" into the 20th century and is still used today. 


The contraction has become the "utility player" of slang words. It now substitutes for a multitude of other contractions displaying the fluid, ever-changing quality of English. It's a favorite of writers and purveyors of bon mots giving phrases a je ne sais quoi. 


Will ain't ever regain its place in "accepted" English? As the saying goes, "It ain't over till it's over" As ever - BB


“When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” Lewis Carroll from Through the Looking Glass