It Ain’t Over Till the Blog Lady Posts
I grew up in the Pennsylvania Dutch region of the Keystone State about ninety minutes northwest of Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Dutch are a cultural group formed by German immigrants who settled in this region during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. My father’s ancestors were of this heritage, and as far as I am aware, my American lineage extends to at least the mid-1800s.
During this period, the contraction ain’t was commonly used to replace am not. Eventually, ain’t became a versatile contraction that can also mean are not or is not, as well as have not, has not, do not, does not, or did not. In Ireland and Scotland, “amn’t” is still used colloquially, but in my neck of Penn’s Woods, ain’t was dialectically as common as y’all is in the South.
Contractions are commonly formed from two words in which one or more letters are removed, and an apostrophe replaces the missing letters creating a new shortened word. Ain’t does not completely follow this norm but instead is used uniquely only in its shortened form. That is unless your nature in any way resembles that of Katherine Stengel, my paternal grandmother, who comfortably thought breaking apart the contraction made perfect sense.
Katherine may have supposed that since grammatically ain’t is considered a nonstandard English word, she could speak the contraction in its original full form and avoid being stigmatized as ignorant or lower class. This is improbable, however, because Grem, as her grandchildren lovingly called her, did not have one spec of vanity or unnecessary pride. Furthermore, I distinctly recall Grem only using ain’t in its divided form if posed as a question that followed a statement — never in a simple, declarative sentence.
For example, she might say, “God is good, ai not?” but not “God ain’t anything but good,” or “We need more milk, ai not?” but not “We ain’t got any milk left,” or “It still works, ai not?” but not “It ain’t broken.” My most memorable phrase speaks something like, “No one thought of that, ai not?” Growing up, my siblings and I capitalized on this interrogative by rephrasing it, “Dumb so-and-so didn’t think of that, ai not?”
I am unsure how to correctly spell the first half of Grem’s undone contraction because I have never seen it written as a child nor as a google-searcher. A quick web search merely taught me that unlike the Celtic nations mentioned above, Standard English does not like two nasal consonants like ‘m’ and ‘n’ together so in time, the contraction evolved into ain’t. All I know is that per my grandmother’s pronunciation, when split, the verb part has a long “a” sound, as in rain, Spain, mainly, plain, and well… ain’t.
My father used to take issue with anyone who proclaimed “Ain’t ain’t a word,” likely because he grew up hearing his mother use her pre-contraction vernacular, but perhaps also because his generation listened to tunes like Doris Day’s “Ain’t We Got Fun” and Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame.” If my memory serves me correctly, he once told me that he wrote an essay in college about why ain’t needs to be in the dictionary. I have no concern about whether ain’t is or is not in Merriam-Webster as long as I can still get my kids to roll their eyes when I say, “And that’s the truth, ai-not?”
Well, after what I have written about my grandmother’s expansion of ain’t, I ask you, very confidentially, she sounds sweet and nice, ai not? No mountain is high enough, no valley low enough, and no river wide enough to keep me from getting to my loving memories of her, ai not? And there is not as much sunshine now that she is gone because there ain’t no Grem like the one I had, ai not?
Well, it’s over now because I’ve posted, ai not? 😆
