As a young child, I had been familiar with several famous pop songs, which featured “ain’t” in the lyrics, including:

— “Ain’t That a Shame.” (Fats Domino)

— “It Ain’t me Babe.” (Johnny Cash)

— “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” (George Gershwin)

— “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s my Brother.” (The Hollies)

Nevertheless, I received correction every time I used the word “ain’t, blamed on improper diction.  After a while, I would cringe whenever I heard someone utter the word “ain’t,” without knowing why. 

Interestingly, the word “ain’t” is not just a four letter word, because it includes an apostrophe, as in —‘—, which suggests an omission or shortening of the word, characterizing it as a contraction.  We all know the meaning of “ain’t,” but do we know what the apostrophe contracts?  Obviously, The “n’t” portion represents a shortened form of “not”, but what does the unapostrophed “ai” represent?  That’s a puzzler!  Some folks believe it stands for “Am I”; but if so, then shouldn’t the contraction become “a’in’t.” — a double contraction.  To be sure, since the apostrophe isn’t pronounced, the double apostrophe would work, but in terms of keystrokes, wouldn’t be just as quick to write “Am not?”  Now that sounds like the playground retort to “are too.” 

As we learned in grammar school, “am not” is not a full sentence, unless the “I” is understood.  The correct expression would be:  “I am not,” which contracted becomes “I a’n’t,” which sounds like “I ant.”  To form the word “ain’t, therefore, we have to reform “I am not” to “Am I not,” then the contraction ‘a’i’n’t works — a triple contraction!.  But if you prefer the phrase “I am not” to “am I not”, then why wouldn’t you just say “I’m not,” the contraction of which would be “I’mn’t”  Frankly, I am unsure how to pronounce that double contraction jumble.

To drill down further, we should explore verb conjugation:  I ain’t, you ain’t, he/she/it ain’t.   Of course, if you remove the apostrophe, and fill in the space, the conjugation now becomes:  I am I not, you am I not, and he/she/it, am I not.  Does that make sense?  The real deal version:  I am not, you are not, he/she/it is not, when contracted becomes:  “I amn’t; you aren’t and he she, it isn’t.  Amn’t?  Now that is a word you do not often hear in public.      

After the above analysis, now I know why people should avoid using “ain’t.

Actually, I have known people that have used the phrase: “I cain’t,” instead of I can’t, which moves into a whole other dimension.  L’u’n’t (let us not) go there.