Katharine Perera, from the University of Manchester, England, visited our class today. The class discussion was focused on the paradoxical situation concerning use of things grammatically correct that are now stigmatized by society and societal usage rules.
Examples:
ain't versus aren't
If it ain't broke...
Ain't I a woman?
I ain't going out.
Is ain't non-standard English? We all understand it. Although it is stigmatized in most formal, educated circles, it is accepted in proverbs and quotations. If one were to listen for a day as to how often the word is used, they might be surprised. In less formal, friend-type situations, ain't is used more often than not. This is a very commonly used word for one which is supposedly stigmatized.Actually, the word ain't is a contraction of am and have. We don't see one say, "I am'nt going." But, in Britain it is acceptable in some dialects to hear, "I am a woman, am'nt I?" Thus, class discussion seemed to indicate that Standard English really can not be decided by rules of logic or grammar.
So why is ain't stigmatized? First of all, we associate it with the uneducated. We associate it with characters of Mark Twain. In fact, in 19th Century Britain ain't was used by a small number of aristocracy that were in fact not educated by the masses. It is now heavily stigmatized in Britain as well. It is clear that uneducated speakers use it. We came to the conclusion that when a word form gets over-generalized, it loses its distinction.
Our class discussion seemed to agree that Standard English is not the usage of the majority. We do, however, tend to use it in our written language. I think we agreed that ain't ain't wrong!
Our next topic of discussion was when and how to use the correct pronouns, and the agreement of pronouns. No one seemed to be sure of the correct way to use them. The biggest issue seemed to be pronoun agreement. It seems many are using the word they as a collective term for both genders. That is to say that instead of saying he/she, his/hers, or s/he some are using they even in situations where it disagrees. We decided we need to invent a non-gender pronoun for these uses. Pronoun Reform-- Yes! We finished up by talking with Ms. Perera about the differences between American English and British English.