anyone else bothered by "ain't" ??

POSTED BY: fabala30
UPDATED: Thursday, October 24, 2002 23:23
VIEWED: 12230
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ILOVEJAYNE

Monday, October 21, 2002 6:03 PM

I'm gald somebody else noticed this. I wince when Mal and Kaylee use it, especially. It stands out so much because they're so careful with their pronunciation. (I'm used to hearin' folks who's used to misusin' them thar words! )

ILOVEJAYNE

Monday, October 21, 2002 6:20 PM

"glad", I meant.

Oh, and by the way, some of Florida is southern. Northern Florida is Southern and Southern Florida is Northern. Or Foreign.

HAPLO721

Monday, October 21, 2002 7:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Thegn:
Y'all is not singular. Y'all is plural. No self-respecting southerner would ever use that phrase in the singular.

Yankee.

Well, it's correct in the Orlando area anyway. So says my cousin who lived there for 2 years.

GATORMARC

Monday, October 21, 2002 8:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Haplo721:
Quote:
Originally posted by Thegn:
Y'all is not singular. Y'all is plural. No self-respecting southerner would ever use that phrase in the singular.

Yankee.

Well, it's correct in the Orlando area anyway. So says my cousin who lived there for 2 years.

That is incorrect... I live in Orlando and anyone of southern heritage in Orlando would not use "y'all" in the singular. Your cousin must be hanging out with carpet baggers.

As for ain't...

I don't understand why people seem to think that it's uneducated. Ain't is a legal contraction... it's been in the English language for about 400 years and it ain't going anywhere.

For the record, "Southern" is the most grammatically correct English in the US if spoken correctly (this means, not back wood Southern but educated southern). It sounds like another case where people from up north are uneducated on the language, and just assume that they are speaking it correctly when they aren't.

ZENCAT

Monday, October 21, 2002 10:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GatorMarc:

As for ain't...

I don't understand why people seem to think that it's uneducated. Ain't is a legal contraction... it's been in the English language for about 400 years and it ain't going anywhere.

You're right, "ain't" has been around for hundreds of years, and it used to be correct. It's the proper contraction of "am not", so technically, back then, "I ain't" was correct, but "you ain't" and "he ain't" were not. I love the way they talk on Firefly; agreeing completely with what someone said previously, the differences in the characters' speech patterns are one of the lovely touches that make this world seem so real. I don't think it sounds forced or unnatural at all. Hell, even the addition of Chinese phrases doesn't sound unnatural, and that just shows how good these actors are! In "Our Mrs. Reynolds," at one point Wash started a sentence in Chinese and finished in English, and it was such a smooth transition I almost didn't notice it.

Also, I'm from Tennessee, and to add my two cents, "y'all" is plural.

-Zencat

"Scandal is the pornography of Puritans."

RADWORLD

Monday, October 21, 2002 11:17 PM

Well coming from the land that gave you "Yeah, Der hey" and "youse"...as in "youse guys want a beer?". I uderstand the complexities of language(sarcasm alert). I too love the Chinese on the show but that seems to ome off far better than some of their "ain'ts". Especially with Kaylee. But thats just me...I ain't always right.

EVANS

Tuesday, October 22, 2002 12:37 AM

How about this. The show is set in the future. By magic or weird science, we get a glimpse into the future. But, oh, the language has changed so much we can't follow it at all. The broadcast from the future is translated by some brilliant but buggy software. What we hear is what we get. Don't like the grammar? Blame it on the software developer, future-actively.

Y'all are probably too young to remember Pogo Possum.

m.

LIVINGIMPAIRED

Tuesday, October 22, 2002 8:44 AM

Well, all I have to say is if English has like 100,000 words, then why doesn't it have a mesely plural second person pronoun? If people are having to make up words like ya'll and youse, then it's English's own fault for not having a vosotros of its own like any decent, self-respecting langauge. Cause, you all know, saying "you all" gets kind of tiring sometimes.

________________

"You still don't get it. It's not about right. It's not about wrong... It's about Power." —Morph-O-Monster, "Lessons"

EVANS

Tuesday, October 22, 2002 12:03 PM

What we lose by not having vosotros or even Ustedes we gain by not having to genderize every frelling word. In fact, we often use the grammatically incorrect they so that we don't have to specify he or she ("Who was that on the phone?" "They didn't say").

m.

QUILL

Tuesday, October 22, 2002 12:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Evans:
Y'all are probably too young to remember Pogo Possum.

I GO POGO!!

Inside every cynic there's an idealist desperately yearning to be let out, and when they are let out they're usually a real pain and cause all sorts of trouble. --Chris Boucher

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