![]() ![]() There was no official decree and no pronouncement signaling this change even though the use of aren’t I gained acceptance relatively quickly, it still took several decades of varying opinion before it became widely allowed. In recent years, however, the word has achieved a degree of acceptance in speech and colloquial prose. In the early and mid-20th century, a number of American usage guides complained about the use of aren’t I. Therefore, if you feel social pressure to not say ain’t, and it feels phonetically awkward to say amn’t, you end up saying aren’t I. Some grammarians have argued in favor of ain’t being accepted as a shortened version of “am not,” but the word has been so thoroughly aspersed that this sense never gained acceptance. Were we to match our verbs and pronouns correctly, we would say “am I not,” rather than “are I not” the contracted version of this might be written as either amn’t (which sounds unwieldy to most speakers of US English) or as ain’t. So why do we use this turn of phrase? One possibility is that ain’t is to blame. Meg Wolitzer, The New York Times, 18 Sept. Come on, "scrabblerocks121," aren't I worthy of the most minimal chat? Though I don't play Scrabble to make new friends, whenever I see this message I always feel slightly insulted. Barbara Brotman, Chicago Tribune, 17 Jun. Isn't it amazing? Aren't I an incredibly law-abiding cyclist? Pat Myers, The Washington Post, 17 Apr., 2014 In fact, it doesn’t just see use in speech, but may also commonly be found in written and edited prose (especially when it is in a slightly informal register):Īren't I incredibly generous to break my own one-prize-per-week rule to give him a $5 mug or bag and a $1 air "freshener"? Paul Ryan ( Political Transcript Wire), press conference, 29 Sept. “So, I'm probably going to eat those words, aren't I. Amy Chozick, The New York Times, 29 Sept. Clinton asked last week in a video address to the Laborers' International Union of North America meeting in Las Vegas. "Why aren't I 50 points ahead?" an animated Mrs. The Wall Street Journal, (transcript, interview with John Williams, President, San Francisco Fed.), "So why isn't-why aren't I more concerned?" Yet despite the fact that this violates some basic rules of grammar that most of us are comfortable with, aren’t I manages to see use in the speech of educated people every day, without occasioning much of a fuss. If you examine the version of aren’t I that has no contractions it quickly becomes apparent what the problem is: “are not I.” Not only is the word order out of whack, but the pronoun does not agree with the verb at all. George Fox was so upset by the singular 'you' that he wrote an entire book to complain about it.
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