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"ain't do nothing"

From:<jcowan@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 18, 2004, 19:04
Ray Brown scripsit:

> That's precisely why I pointed out that *"ain't do nothing" does not occur > in any variety of English. I'm delineating actual usage - it ain't used.
I missed this before. It actually is used in all but the highest registers of AAVE, and has roughly the sense of Standard English "haven't done anything". This can cause considerable confusion between AAVE-speakers and other anglophones, as in the sentence "They ain't like that", which means "They aren't like that" in most dialects but "They don't like that" in AAVE. -- John Cowan www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com jcowan@reutershealth.com SAXParserFactory [is] a hideous, evil monstrosity of a class that should be hung, shot, beheaded, drawn and quartered, burned at the stake, buried in unconsecrated ground, dug up, cremated, and the ashes tossed in the Tiber while the complete cast of Wicked sings "Ding dong, the witch is dead." --Elliotte Rusty Harold on xml-dev -- "Kill Gorgûn! Kill orc-folk! John Cowan No other words please Wild Men. jcowan@reutershealth.com Drive away bad air and darkness http://www.reutershealth.com with bright iron!" --Ghân-buri-Ghân http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

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Joe <joe@...>