“Ain't” is cool, ain't it?

The topic of learning English, judging by the search results , is quite relevant here. And if so, let's find out more about it together.
Remember, what design replaces ain't : am not , have not or do not ?
The correct answer: all three! And this sentence is only so that it would be impossible to guess from the short answer :) Let's see how it happened and how to use this word correctly.



Ain't [eint] is successfully disguised as a modern word from American slang, but in fact it is a large-scale offspring of the London dialect Cockney . Probably the word originally looked like hain't; it was used as a spoken replacement for the negatives has not and have not. Then the "h" fell off imperceptibly.
')
At the beginning of the 18th century ain't becomes popular. Now it replaces the negation of am not, and a little later - immediately is not and are not. And then (in the 19th century) the unexpected happens: the word acquires a specific label and is expelled from competent English speech. It is rumored that the main culprit - Charles Dickens (but it is unlikely that he seriously thought about such consequences for the poor ain't). The thing is that in the mouths of his characters from the lower strata of society ain't sounded so often and juicy that ... the rest can be continued by yourself :)

Today, the word ain't replaces all five constructs: am / is / are not, has / have not. And sometimes these three: don't, didn't. And even these two: won't and shan't. It is still considered that he has no place in literary English - for example, in official documents and business letters. Informal, what can you do!

No, no, I ain't gonna do it! - No, no, I will not do that!
I ain't liked him. - I did not like it.

Ain't attaches special expressiveness to the phrase, attracts attention. Emotional is a word :) Often found in oral speech and lyrics.

Ain't that cool? - Well, isn't that cool?
She's real cute, ain't she? - She's cool, tell me!
I ain't you. - I'm not you.

By the way, ain't calmly gets on with other negatives in one statement; the principle “two denials give an assertion” does not work:

Ha! I knew you - Ha, I knew it: you just have nothing to say!

'Tain't [It ain't] nobody's business if I do. - “ Who cares? Or “ It doesn't concern anyone ” (from Ardis Fagerholm’s song “Ain't Nobody's Business”).

Lena Agafonov,
translator