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Re: Back to the Future (was: I'm back, sort of)

From:John Cowan <cowan@...>
Date:Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 12:54
Ray Brown scripsit:

> "ain't" had been the mark of upper class aristo English for a few > centuries;
Indeed. The oldest pron. is probably [Ant] from "are not", parallel to "aren't" itself. In North America the usual pron. is [ejnt], and it's probably *the* most stigmatized non-obscene/profane linguistic form in use, though a tad less so when it means "am not" as opposed to "are not" or "is not", there being no contraction of the relevant kind available for "am not". I have seen "amn't" in writing in books written in England, but find it hard to believe that anybody ever actually said that.
> it retreated among "the lower orders" because of the pretensions of the > 19th century bourgeoisie, but never disappeared.
I forget who it was that was explaining that English class accents are a bell curve, with pronunciation (not vocabulary) shifting back toward 18th-century norms the further one moves away from the middle accent. It was definitely JRRT who was explaining to the American soldier on the train that RP was a middle accent, not an upper one, in the course of which he uttered the memorable comparison of American to "English wiped with a dirty sponge".
> "..there are Ents and things that look like Ents but ain't, as you might > say."
Ho! Another minor mystery cleared up -- add this one to the "donkey's years" that you explained yonks ago.
> Dunno how old "dunno" is, but it was certainly already in common currency > this side of the Pond 50 years ago or more.
Where does the stress fall? More common here in allegro speech is ["AId@now]. -- "Do I contradict myself? John Cowan Very well then, I contradict myself. jcowan@reutershealth.com I am large, I contain multitudes. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan --Walt Whitman, _Leaves of Grass_ http://www.reutershealth.com

Replies

Tristan McLeay <zsau@...>
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>objects of either directivity
michael poxon <m.poxon@...>
Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>