Teacher Discussion Forums

Could the insistence on using "ain't" when speaking regulary to a group of Standard English speakers be seen as anti-social behaviour?

No! It's making a statement, that may well be ironic, or a put on folksiness, like 'nukular', but you would need to give the exact context before it could be said to be 'anti-social'.

It's making a statement, that may well be ironic, or a put on folksiness, like 'nukular', but you would need to give the exact context before it could be said to be 'anti-social'.

Remember I'm talking about regular, insistent use and not just on context.

Who's the speaker? Male/female/American/British/teenagers/adults...?

I guess I could also ask the same questions about the audience.

sbourque wrote:Who's the speaker? Male/female/American/British/teenagers/adults...?

I guess I could also ask the same questions about the audience.

What difference would that make, IYO?

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It might be that the consistent use of the negative auxiliary “ain’t” is because the speaker is simply accustomed to using such and doesn’t see why his/her language use should be modified by the listener’s language use.

My question was about insistence of use. Thing is, could such use be seen as anti-social?

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Could we also render your comment in this way?

Well, if the speaker is consciously using“whom” when he or she should know better, gleefully observing the ruffled look on his listener’s face who obviously doesn’t approve of such use, I guess so, it might just be antisocial.

readings that enriched my vocabulary more than the social setting I grew up in ever could.

That enriched your big word vocabulary, you mean? The social setting in which I grew up in certainly enriched my small words vocabulary, and grateful to it I remain.

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(lorikeet, I do indeed thank goodness that my name isn't D¡ck, but using a Spanish keyboard, I can use the upsidedown exclamation point as an "i" and it gets by the kiddie kontrol)

But what do you want to do when instead of writing about Dickens you want to write about cocktails, Dolly Parton's music, cuntry and western, or H. G. Frankfurt's philosophical treatise On Bullshit?

As you can see, there is a way of getting past the Bowlderizer, but for fear of annoying the moderators, I'll let you work it out for yourself.