What is ain't? I will not? And what's the meaning of "Joshua"? It is a song title by Dolly Parton.
2006-12-21 18:41:33 · 4 answers · asked by Cindy 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
why is ain't being used?
2006-12-21 18:54:42 · update #1
ain't is the word people with ill-formed vocabularies use to replace all sorts of proper contractions....
"I ain't got it"--here it means haven't
"That ain't right"--here it means isn't
2006-12-21 18:47:47 · answer #1 · answered by A W 4 · 1⤊ 1⤋
"Ain't" is a dialect version, typically used in southern American states and throughout the Midwest, that is a contraction of a negation and the "to be" verb. Since English has only two tenses--past and present, the aspectual use of furtures and perfects, ect, will have an auxillary when "ain't" is used, just as if you were using a negation and some form of the "to be" verb.
It is not the case that people who use this word have "ill-formed" vocabularies, as some have suggested. Linguistically, it is fully formalizable as a syntactic unit, and it's semantics are also pefectly formalizable. It is merely an idiomatic usage characterized by certain regional uses.
There are perfecrly well educated individuals, you know, people with PhDs, Law degrees, medical degrees and so on, who use this term idiomatically. The only people who think that the word is not grammatical are people who have no idea of the evolution of American english and all the constructions that they presently use, which, fifty years ago, would be deemed "ill-formed."
2006-12-21 18:57:47 · answer #2 · answered by russell_my_frege 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
"Ain't" is a way of saying "am not"
'I ain't a vegetarian' is 'I am not a vegetarian'
'I aint' going to a party' is 'I am not going to a party'
Joshua is a name, originally from the Bible. Sorry, don't know what it means though.
2006-12-21 18:45:30 · answer #3 · answered by Peace 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Ain't = isn't = is not.
2006-12-21 18:43:19 · answer #4 · answered by JJ 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋