On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, John Cowan wrote:
> 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
The equivalent pronunciation [&int] is the only pronunciation I've heard
here in Oz.
> 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.
Indeed; whenever a contraction of 'to be' and 'not' is requived in the 1st
p. pres. sing., 'aren't' is used IME. ('I'm going to die now, aren't I?'
as a random and perhaps not very nice example.)
> 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".
Ahah! That explains the RP accent: they were shown said dirty sponge and
couldn't stand the smell!
> Ho! Another minor mystery cleared up -- add this one to the "donkey's
> years" that you explained yonks ago.
What's the explanation of 'donkey's years'?
--
Tristan <kesuari@...>
Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
-- Snoopy