"ain't do nothing"

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

Reply